


Ars Moriendi

by Donna_Immaculata



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: 17th Century, Angst, Friendship, Gen, Horror, Insomnia, Mindfuck, Night Terrors, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Horror, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Supernatural Elements, Superstition, Team Dynamics, Undead, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Value Dissonance, War Crimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 23:30:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2044320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donna_Immaculata/pseuds/Donna_Immaculata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of Marsac's burial, Aramis doesn't sleep.</p><p>Inspired by the idea I’ve seen pop up in several places that Marsac would come back as a zombie, as evidenced by Aramis leaving the sword stuck in his grave for him. Despite the silly-sounding premise, this is not a crack fic - quite the contrary, actually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pavor Nocturnus

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Dying of the Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1608926) by [Cunien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cunien/pseuds/Cunien). 



> This was inspired by Cunien's "The Dying of the Light", because her story made me itch to explore the spirit of the age, in particular its superstitions and beliefs, and incorporate the supernatural/undead creatures known in Europe at that time.
> 
>  _As to Aramis, he dwelt in a little lodging composed of a boudoir, an eating room, and a bedroom, which room, situated, as the others were, on the ground floor, looked out upon a little fresh green garden, shady and impenetrable to the eyes of his neighbours._ Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

_They rise in the East. They come, carried on the wings of the Black Death, staggering in the wake of the war that tears through the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. They devour themselves and then they walk again. They spill onto the earth to devour others._

_They rise in the East._

Aramis’ bedroom window opens to the east, and from where he is lying in his bed he can see Aurora’s first hesitant blush, a light smear upon the indigo-black sky. He’s left the door to the garden open. The heatwave from which they had a respite for a few blessed rainy days has returned, and all of Paris is groaning under its sweltering weight. The King and Queen have left the city for a sojourn in the Fontainebleau residence, and Aramis wishes he and Athos and Porthos and d’Artagnan had been assigned to go with the court. Anything would be better than breathing the oppressive air that sloshes around him sluggish and sticky like mud.

He is lying on his back, drifting in and out of sleep, his arms and legs thrown wide open. The metal of the cross on his chest is warm with the heat of his skin, and Aramis raises one hand lethargically to turn it over, so that the cooler side will rest upon his heart.

“The cross won’t protect you.”

Aramis’ skin shrinks around him and his heart bulges until it fills out his whole chest. He doesn’t think as he rolls off the bed and grips the hilt of his sword. It is not fear, there wasn’t any time for fear to build. It’s the primal reaction of an animal cornered in its den. His body pulls itself en garde even before he is fully awake.

He knows that voice, would know it anywhere. Has heard it in his dreams often enough, but this is no dream. Marsac is standing on the threshold that separates the bedroom from the hall, its head lowered, its eyes shadowed and its grin wolfish.

“What are you doing here?” Aramis asks, even though he knows.

“I’m back. You always knew I would be back, Aramis.” The sound of his name is a tender caress, and Aramis shivers as if someone had run their nails down the nape of his neck.

“Why?” His free hand reaches for his cross again, the protection that Her Most Christian Majesty has bestowed on him. He feels its power between his fingers, it is the only barrier that separates his naked, human body from the abomination in the door.

It tilts its head. “Aramis,” it speaks softly. “Please. I, too, am a Catholic.” It tugs at the chain around his neck and pulls out the St. Francis medallion from underneath its shirt.

“What do you want from me?” Neither of them has moved, and Aramis’ muscles are beginning to quake with the effort of keeping his arm steady and outstretched. He doesn’t dare lower his weapon.

“You killed me.”

“You wanted me to.”

“Self-slaughtered _and_ murdered,” it laughs low in its throat. “Two reasons for returning rather than just one.”

“Deserter _and_ assassin,” Aramis reminds it. “Two reasons indeed.”

A ray of light has crept in and settles down in a golden spot by Aramis’ foot. He glances down for the blink of an eye, and when he looks up again, it is gone. The door gapes open, and he crosses the room with three steps and slams it shut.

He falls back on the bed, his limbs shaking with exhaustion and cold. It is the cold that has been trapped deep in his bones, the cold that has nothing to with the temperature of the air around him. It is spurting beneath his skin, tiny needle pricks of pain, and he scratches his arms, his chest and legs and curls up under the blanket, shivering himself into sleep.

When he wakes, the sun is peering fully into the room, and he knows that the night’s waking nightmare is gone for good. It’s been a long time since he’s had one of those. They used to scare him out of his wits before he learned to shield himself from them. He lifts the cross to his lips and kisses it and, with a sigh, disentangles himself from the sweat-soaked sheets and reaches for a fresh shirt.

~*~

“Apparently, the Cardinal has joined forces with the Protestants to fight the Catholic armies in the Holy Roman Empire.” D’Artagnan has rushed into the garrison yard and throws himself onto the bench across Aramis.

“If you ever hear the man in the tavern begin his account with ‘apparently’, you can be sure that not one word of it is true,” Athos says without lifting his eyes from the bowl of gruel he pretends to eat.

“It wasn’t a man in the tavern,” d’Artagnan is indignant. “It was Constance. They trade to Magdeburg, and their partner has just returned from there and says that the city was plundered and everyone massacred. He barely made it out alive and it took him weeks to return to Paris. He says the Cardinal gave the Swedish money to support their campaign.”

“Oh well, if it’s the trader of Mme Bonacieux’ business partner who said that then the information is sound enough.” Porthos grins and looks at Aramis with a shake of his head. Aramis tries to grin back, but his mouth doesn’t quite cooperate yet and he turns his attention to his breakfast.

“It’s not like that.” The boy sounds almost exasperated. “Constance talked to the man and asked him about it, her husband thinks of expanding his business in the Empire. Apparently, the Imperialists like their women to wear nice dresses, too. Constance needs to know how badly they might be affected. She made sure to get the right information.”

Aramis notes abstractedly that it’s always ‘Constance’s husband’, never ‘M. Bonacieux’ wife’.

“Aramis, you tell him. You know her.”

“Athos has known her longer than I have,” Aramis says. “And better.” He pauses with his spoon in the air. “It’s not often I have the opportunity to say that about a lady.”

Porthos snorts and Athos pushes his bowl away, determination etched into every line of his face. “I’m done,” he says darkly, glaring at the food. “I don’t care how nutritious you say it is. I’m not eating any more of this.”

“You haven’t eaten _any_ of this,” Porthos says, getting to his feet and pulling on his gloves. “Right. I’m on guard this forenoon.” He grins. “I’ll be done before midday heat sets in, and then back here for a spot of lunch and perhaps a game of cards. I heard,” he leans in with a mock conspiratorial whisper, “young Bouchard is a dab hand at quinze, so that should be interesting.”

His hand rests heavily on Aramis’ shoulder for a long moment, a reassuring pressure, and then he turns to go. “Wait for me!” D’Artagnan jumps to his feet and follows him to the gate. “I’ll stand guard with you.” Aramis watches them go, his head tilted back and leaning against the wall. The sun is already a bright yellow, the sky cloudless. The cold has crept back into his bones, he feels its lurking presence; on the surface, he is hot and sweating, and the clash of the two sensations makes him shiver.

Athos is still staring down at his unfinished breakfast. He raises his head, shoots a sidelong glance at Aramis and says: “You don’t fancy yours, either.”

Aramis shakes his head. He’s hungry and queasy, and he hopes Athos is too preoccupied with his own queasiness to ask questions. 

“We’ll give it to the chickens, then.” Athos reaches over and picks up Aramis’ bowl. “I can’t believe I let Porthos talk us into eating this muck.” He upends both bowls and sploshes the contents on the ground, rising clouds of dust in the process. The flock of Serge’s chickens comes running at once. They are quite used to crumbs from the musketeers’ tables, and the men feed them gladly, well aware that their generosity is in direct proportion to the fatness of the hens and, hence, to the flavour of the coq au vins come autumn.

“He cares for our wellbeing,” Aramis says mildly. There is a pressure behind his eyes that makes him feel like his vision was lagging behind. He almost hears Athos speak before he sees his lips form the words. The lack of sleep is getting to him. He’d very much like to share the bed with another person some time soon, but it’s too hot, they would bake in each other’s body heat.

The sun is too bright today. It makes his eyes hurt, and when he closes them, dark patterns swirl on the inside of his eyelids. He opens his eyes abruptly and watches the shadows dissipate. Before his vision can sharpen again, a shape catches his eye, tucked into the gloom in the corner by the gate. He blinks rapidly, willing his eyes to focus, but it is gone the moment he thinks he’s got it. It might have been nothing. It might have been a man. It might have been-

“Aramis, are you all right?” Athos is watching him from beneath the brim of his hat. One solitary bead of sweat swells on his temple, but apart from that, his appearance is calm and unruffled.

“How are you not hot?” Aramis asks.

Athos shrugs carelessly. “I don’t move unless it’s necessary,” he says with a pointed look at Aramis’ restless fingers, his jittery knee.

“You’ll be having a blast standing guard later, then,” Aramis shoots back. He clenches his teeth and rams his nails into the palm of his hand to force himself to keep still. He stands up and picks up his hat from the table. “I’ll be back in time, don’t worry,” he says in answer to Athos’ wordless question. “I’m going to confession.”

~*~

It is a twenty-minute walk to Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, and Aramis climbs the steps to the church with his head bent. When he stops before the entrance, to bare his head and to empty his mind as much as possible, he looks up to the top of the campanile. A few clouds tumble from behind the belfry and the world tilts for a moment as they speed past, making it appear as though the tower were toppling backward. The cawing murder of crows that circles around it pushes it even more off-kilter.

Stepping into the narthex is like diving into a pond of cool water. The air is light here, and he breathes in deeply to take in the clean, woody scent of incense. Aramis dips his fingertips into the stoup and crosses himself with holy water, bowing his head before the tall cross above the altar. The texture is different than that of normal water, it is smooth and soothing, like warm oil. The white stone around him comes alive with the light that pours in through stained-glass windows. His head tipped back, Aramis walks slowly towards the alcove that holds the confessional, marvelling at the airy space above his head; the columns seem to go on forever. In the aisle, he stops beneath the window depicting craftsmen and workmen; a solemn-faced butcher is stripping down a pig, whose face bears an expression of serene resignation.

He catches movement from the corner of his eye, barely at the edge of his peripheral vision. Aramis’ hand is on the hilt of his sword before he can stop himself and he turns sharply. There’s nothing there, but he could swear there was, half a second ago, a man’s shape, leaning against a column with its hat pulled over its eyes. “Who’s there?” His voice echoes between the columns. “Come out and show yourself.”

A sigh, then, as if the whole building has let out the breath it was holding, a faint susurrus that makes the air ripple and the hairs on the back of his neck stand. Then, footsteps, their click-clack obscenely loud in the sacred silence. The black-clad shape of a man, and Aramis stares at him unblinkingly, drenched in sweat and breathing like a man who’s just swam across the Seine. “Pax tecum, my son,” the abbé says. “I welcome you to our church, but please bear in mind that this is a place of God, of prayer.” He points at Aramis’ hand that still clings to the sword.

“I’m sorry.” Aramis lets go at once. “Forgive me, I thought-” His eyes dart back to where the man stood. “There was someone there. He wore a hat.”

The abbé doesn’t look. He is gazing at Aramis and his eyes are full of mild reproach. “Even so, this is not a place where you are permitted to fight him. Leave your worldly quarrels outside these gates.”

“Yes. I’m sorry.” Aramis tangles his hand in his sweat-soaked hair. He doesn’t say that the quarrel might be one that is not of this world, he can’t. Not here, not surrounded by light and space. He longs for the darkness of the confessional. “I’m here for confession,” he says. 

The abbé takes in his appearance. “You are a soldier,” he says in a tone that Aramis can’t read. The priest’s face doesn’t give anything away. Aramis has no way of knowing what kind of man he is, if he is one who listens and forgives; if he is one who listens and condemns; or if he is one who doesn’t listen. There is a tremendous sense of liberty in throwing himself at the mercy of a stranger like that.

The abbé disappears inside the confessional, and Aramis waits, looking up at the window with the pig butcher and breathing slowly and deliberately, he waits until the silence from within tells him that his confessor has settled down. He ducks into the left-hand compartment and sinks down on the prie-dieu. 

“In nomine Patris et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,” says the abbé.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” Aramis whispers into the darkness behind the grill, and the words alone make his soul feel lighter already.

“What are your sins, my son?” the priest asks, and Aramis can tell, he can just tell from the inflection, can tell with an instinct honed over years that his confessor expects him to talk about the men he killed on the battlefield, about the women he bedded. That his penance has been drawn up for him even before he stepped into the confessional.

He takes a deep breath. “I think I’m losing my mind.”

He learns what kind of man the abbé is: one who listens and one who preaches. One who forgives if the penitent permits himself to be taught. It is an article of faith, Aramis knows that very well, to believe in ghosts. The Bible makes the belief in them a law: the ghost of Samuel appeared to Saul. He knows it, and yet his soul refuses to believe it. It is preposterous, Aramis realises after a while, that the more the abbé talks about spectres and phantoms walking the Earth, the less inclined Aramis is to believe in them, despite the evidence of his own eyes. He is convinced, by the time he leaves the confessional, that Marsac was a dream, conjured up by his fevered and exhausted brain. The ghost of a slaughtered man come back to Earth seeking revenge on the man who killed him – the idea seems ludicrous. If it were so, every soldier would be tormented by the spirits of the dead every minute of his life.

“Go in peace,” the abbé says and makes a sign of the cross on his side of the grill.

Aramis crosses himself, kisses the fringe of the abbé’s stole and leaves the confessional with a heart that is considerably lighter. Once verbalised, his nocturnal fears and fancies appear absurd. He walks back past the stained-glass windows, stops briefly to admire the shrine of Christ’s Passion and enters the nave, where, facing the altar, he bows his head and makes the sign of the cross. A shadow lurks underneath the spiral stairs that lead to the choir, but Aramis is not alarmed. There are shadows everywhere, they dance between the pews and bounce between columns, and none of them holds the ghost of a dead man. When he steps through the door, a loft of doves flutters from underneath his feet and scatters in the air. Aramis drops a few coins into a blind beggar’s hand, puts his hat back on and makes his way back to the garrison to meet Athos. The midday heat presses down heavily, but there is a thunderstorm in the air, the charged, humid air will soon be cleansed by rain.

~*~

It’s night, and rain hasn’t come. Aramis is not asleep. A mare crouches on his chest whenever he drifts off and he jerks awake, gasping for air. When he turns his head to look out of the window, he can see the silhouette of a tree branch against the gibbous moon, stabbing upwards like the devil’s horn. His bed sheets are damp beneath him and cling to his skin.

When he turns his head away from the window, he isn’t surprised to see the dark silhouette in the door, just behind the threshold. It is smiling and its eyes glitter.

This time, Aramis doesn’t jump out of bed. His limbs are too fatigued, his blood too listless to boil with anger and passion. He quickly scans his heart for fear but doesn’t find any. An odd serenity has come upon him. “If you want to kill me,” he whispers, “I won’t do anything to stop you.”

“Kill you?” Marsac’s smile widens. “Why should I kill you?”

“Revenge?” Aramis whispers. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? Revenge.”

“Not on you, brother,” it says.

“No?” He is almost disappointed. As if he wasn’t worthy of Marsac’s fury and vengeance. “What do you want, then?”

“Your help. Always, your help.”

Aramis shakes his head. “I can’t help you. I tried, but-” he takes a shaky breath. “I couldn’t. Not when you were alive. How should I help you now that you’re dead?”

“I wasn’t alive,” it says. “I have been dead for years.”

“I know,” Aramis whispers. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m more alive now than I’ve been in a long time,” Marsac continues. It takes a step forward but stops abruptly and bares its teeth in a snarl. “You’ve been to church,” it says.

“How do you know?” Aramis sits up, his heart beating faster for the first time since Marsac appeared. “How do you know where I was? Were you there, too?”

Marsac doesn’t speak, doesn’t move. It stands in the door, its fingers dug into the doorframe either side of its body, its torso slanted forward, leaning into the bedroom, but its feet have not crossed the threshold, its snarling mouth a black abyss.

Aramis has pressed his hand to his heart – so hard that the cross digs painfully into his chest and his palm. “Or are you,” he breathes, “are you just in my head?”

At that, Marsac chokes out a laugh. “Oh, Aramis,” it half-sighs, half-growls. “Oh, my beloved brother.” It pulls itself back into the darkness of the hall and Aramis listens to the sound of its footsteps fading out as it makes its way back to whence it came.

He sinks back into the sheets and only now notices that his skin is shivering. He doesn’t feel cold. He doesn’t feel anything. He stares into the void above his head and thinks nothing until sleep claims his body.


	2. Les Misères et les Malheurs de la Guerre

“I had to bring them,” d’Artagnan shrugs helplessly and helps himself to more wine. He, Athos and Aramis are seated at a table in the Golden Harrow and are currently engaged in watching a man and a boy negotiate with the landlord. The man is a trader, as evidenced by his attire; a stout man who has lost a lot of weight recently, his clothes, finely cut though they are, hang loosely around his frame. The boy wears an outlandish tunic and clutches a small bundle to his chest. Anyone who’d try to take it off him, Aramis thinks, might just as well attempt to rip his heart from his chest. 

“They have to find new lodgings, they can’t stay at Constance’s house any longer.”

Aramis raises his eyebrows. “Has she thrown them out?”

“Bonacieux has. Sort of. I think. I wasn’t there,” d’Artagnan takes another sip of wine. “Planchet,” he indicates the stout trader who at this moment has the face of a man who’s just made an excellent deal. “Planchet usually lodges with them when he’s in Paris, but now I am here,” he shrugs again, embarrassed this time, “and there isn’t a lot of room. I shared with him, with Jean-Jacques.” He points. “The kid. But that’s not really a long-term solution. He keeps me awake.”

“Oh, does he?” Aramis smirks.

“Not like that. He wouldn’t know about _that_ , he’s not from here,” d’Artagnan says in a tone meant to convey the worldliness of a sophisticated Parisian. Aramis and Athos exchange an amused glance that says, ‘they grow up so fast’.

“No, he wakes up screaming,” d’Artagnan says matter-of-factly, with the callousness of youth that puts a Parisian’s worldliness to shame.

“And he’s called _Jean-Jacques_?” Aramis asks after a short silence. “Didn’t you say he’s from somewhere in the Holy Roman Empire?”

“Well, he told me his name, but it’s that infernal language of his, I can’t say it. Planchet says it means Jean-Jacques in French.”

“Does he speak French?” Athos asks. 

“Sort of. He understands me and I almost always know what he’s saying. Aramis’ll find it easier, I think: Jean-Jacques speaks Latin.”

“I think Aramis also speaks German,” Athos says.

“A bit. Not really.” Aramis says. “I studied it a bit, to be able to read Martin Luther’s works, but I quickly gave up.”

“To read the heretic?” Athos says with his sidelong almost-smile. “How very rebellious of you.”

“It’s always good to know what the enemy is thinking,” Aramis drains his cup and puts it back on the table. “Shh. They’re coming.”

Planchet and Jean-Jacques weave their way through the throng that populates the Golden Harrow and come to their table. They can see now that Planchet is older than he looks from a distance; he has the bearing of a man perhaps in his forties and, despite his relative bulk, looks like someone who can spend many hours in the saddle. His face however is lined, his hair which appeared fair across the room turns out to be greying, and he’s got two front teeth missing. He wears an air of quiet dignity and confidence that endears Aramis to him instantly, and by the look on Athos’ face he knows that his friend is thinking the same. If one were to do business across the continent, this is the kind of man one would want as one’s partner.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” he says. Ah, a Picard, the accent is unmistakable. “M. d’Artagnan was so kind as to invite me to your table. We don’t want to impose, but if you’d let me buy you a couple of bottles of the finest wine this tavern has to offer, I’d be glad of your company.”

Aramis smiles and tips his hat, his eyes flicking to Athos. “You’re very welcome, Monsieur Planchet,” Athos says, moving his chair to make space. “Please, have a seat. And your-” he glances at the boy, who stands very still with his bundle in his arms. He’s got the pinched look of a young man who has grown rapidly within a short space of time, all gangly legs and arms, and a neck like a chicken. He still has to grow into his ears and nose, the poor thing. It’s impossible to tell his age, he could be thirteen or he could be eighteen. A pale, waifish creature, skinny and underfed. Yet Aramis thinks that one would not want to pick a quarrel with him. There’s a feverish glint in his eye that one wouldn’t like to see turn into a blaze.

“This is Jean-Jacques,” Planchet says. 

“Hans Jacob,” the boy says.

“Hans Jacob,” Aramis repeats, just to prove that he can, and catches Athos’ gaze who is all but rolling his eyes at him. “Delighted to make your acquaintance. I’m Aramis and this gentleman here is Athos.”

“He came with me when I returned to Paris. He didn’t have anywhere else to go. I’ve taken him on as an apprentice,” Planchet continues.

“Sit down, Jean-Jacques,” d’Artagnan says, speaking very loudly and slowly. “And have a glass of wine.”

“Thank you,” the boy sits on the edge of a chair and puts his bundle in his lap. “But I don’t drink vinum.” His speech is an odd one; it is undoubtedly French, yet his pronunciation makes his words almost incomprehensible and he’s obviously in the habit of throwing in Latin words. It is the French of a person who learned it from a book and never had the chance to practise by conversing with a Frenchman.

“I’m afraid this is all there is,” Athos says and pours the boy a cup. “Drink.”

Athos’ voice is impossible to disobey. The boy drinks, coughs, and then drinks some more. The landlord of the Golden Harrow keeps a good stock, and he has learned to bring out his finest for them. 

The boy drinks again, carefully, rolling it on his tongue. 

“Welcome to Paris,” Aramis says and toasts him. “We’ll make a native of you yet.”

“Started without me, have ya?” Porthos looms suddenly behind Athos and the boy, his hands on the backrests of their chairs. For such a big man he certainly knows how to move soundlessly. “That’s a nice collection of bottles you’ve got here.”

“Porthos,” Athos says in a warning undertone. Hans Jacob startled violently and now his body is coiled like a spring. The fever in his eye is stoked.

Aramis jerks his head, and Porthos lets go of the boy’s chair and moves around so that Jean-Jacques can see him fully, not just as a shadow behind his back.

“Good of you do join us,” Aramis says after the introductions have been made and Porthos has sat down beside him. “How did the game go?”

Porthos laughs a booming and satisfied laugh, shoves his hand into his pocket and pours a stream of coins onto the table. “The next few bottles are on me.”

“Porthos, my friend,” Aramis throws an arm around his shoulder and takes off his hat with his other hand. “May Fortuna always smile upon you.”

~*~

Planchet is a much-travelled man, they learn. He is also very well connected, with business partners in all important trade centres in Europe, and could, as he tells them, run his business by letter from his house in Calais. But he likes the excitement and adventure of travelling to foreign places. “One day,” he says, “I’d like to go to the West Indies and see the cotton plantations myself. I hear they’re a splendid sight. To think that not long ago people used to think that cotton grew on the vegetable lamb of Tartary! Some still think so, but luckily we live in modern times where such myths are slowly dying out and we embrace science and progress.”

“Cotton plantations, eh?” says Porthos. Athos shoots him a warning glance. ‘This is not the time’, says his gaze, but Porthos is just drunk enough and his blood just heated enough from the thrill of the cards game to ignore him. “Worked by slaves?”

Planchet looks at him. “Yes,” he says calmly.

“Men and women stolen from their homes and shipped across the ocean to die in somebody else’s fields?” Porthos’ voice barely rises above a whisper, but a hush has fallen over the table and his words are as audible as if he was preaching them from the pulpit.

“Yes,” Planchet says again. “Just like that fine leather jacket of yours was made by tanners who wade hip-deep in piss and have the skin of their arms and their faces burned off by lime day in, day out. Clothing people is a dirty business, don’t think that I don’t know that. But until we go back to wearing animal fur, some people will suffer for it. Others will benefit.”

“Making fine clothes is not a good enough reason for committing atrocities against other human beings,” Porthos insists.

“What is a good enough reason?” asks Planchet. “Something less trivial than clothes, you think?”

“Religion perhaps?” All heads turn at that unexpected contribution. Hans Jacob has barely uttered a word all evening, listening to their conversations in silence.

“You’re a Protestant,” Aramis says softly.

“We no longer persecute Huguenots,” d’Artagnan says. “Not really.”

“I am _not_ a Huguenot.” The wine has painted red spots on Hans Jacob’s otherwise pale cheeks. Aramis glances at Athos and shakes his head.

“How much did you drink?” he asks the boy. So engrossed have they been listening to Planchet’s stories that they haven’t paid any attention to how Hans Jacob’s first encounter with wine was going.

“No, it’s fine,” says d’Artagnan. “I’ve kept an eye on him.” Aramis smiles. D’Artagnan apparently fancies himself the boy’s guide and mentor. He even holds himself differently tonight, attempting to emulate Athos’ poise. Not an easy task for a farm boy from Gascony. 

“He’s from Magdeburg,” Planchet says. “It’s a Protestant city. Was. Destroyed by the German Catholic League in May. I was there on business, and I was lucky: Jean-Jacques helped me flee the city after the troops arrived. He had a horse.”

“His family had a farm,” d’Artagnan says.

“Ah!” Aramis nods, looking from d’Artagnan to Hans Jacob and back again.

“In my language they call it the marriage of Magdeburg. Because our coat of arms shows the Magdeburg Maiden, and the enemy has taken her,” Hans Jacob says in a low voice.

“What about your family home?” Athos asks.

“They destroyed that as well,” Planchet says. “He didn’t have anywhere to go, I took him with me.”

Hans Jacob isn’t looking at them. His eyes are fixed at the table, but what he sees is not the aged wood. His speech is hard to follow at times, he stumbles over French words and replaces them with others, foreign ones, a jumble of German and Latin, but as Aramis looks around, he has no doubt that each one of his friends understands what the boy is saying.

“The riders came into our village and came into the cottages. They put their horses in the stables. Some began to butcher straightaway, to boil and to fry, but others went into the houses and searched them from top to bottom. Not even a privy was safe from them, as if they thought the Golden Fleece of Colchis was hidden there. Others packed bundles with cloth, clothes and all kinds of household effects, and lard and prunes and bread, as if they wanted to carry them to the market. Some thrust their swords and rapiers into hay and straw, like there weren’t enough pigs and sheep for them to stab. Some smashed ovens and windows, and beds and tables and benches. They treated our maid in the stable so that the shrieked and screamed and she wouldn’t come out later at all. And the farmhand they tied up and put him on the ground and wedged his mouth open with a piece of wood and poured a full milking bucket of slops into him and they called it the Swedish drink. And they screwed off the flintlocks from their pistols and screwed in the thumbs of the farmers instead and hurt them like if they were witches, and one of the farmers they shoved in the oven and made fire like if they wanted to burn him even though he never admitted to witchcraft. And another one they put a rope round his neck and twisted it and twisted it till blood burst out from his mouth and nose and ears. And they forced my father down to the ground and rubbed the soles of his feet with damp salt and they brought a goat to lick it off, and it tickled and he laughed and laughed and laughed so that you had to laugh with him, and the goat licked and licked and licked off the salt and the skin and ate it all.”

“And so you see,” Planchet says softly, breaking the silence that has fallen after Hans Jacob’s voice died away and he sat with his head bent and his knuckles white where they clenched around his cup. “You see, atrocities against our fellow humans are being committed even here, in our civilised countries. And I dare say if the Cardinal declares war against the Spanish or against the German Empire, you gentlemen, too, will-” he breaks off on catching Aramis’ eye.

“You might want to reconsider your next words,” Athos says in a level tone.

“All I’m saying is we are but mortal men, subject to the will of our God and of our King. We follow the commands of our sovereigns. How are we to judge what’s right and what’s wrong? If the King sends you, you go. If God calls upon you, you listen and obey. And I can use Jean-Jacques’s example to testify that all those atrocities that make us weep and despair are committed for our own good, and are often decreed by the mercy and the goodness of the Almighty. You were brought up a heretic,” he says patting the boy’s hair, “but God gave you a reason to leave your home country. And now that I’ve taken you on, you will learn to become a good Catholic so that you will not roast in hell for all eternity.”

“Now, that’s something to get excited about,” Aramis says lightly, watching Athos pour the boy another glass of wine. 

“Don’t worry, lad.” Porthos puts a large hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You’ll be fine. People have lived through worse and survived. Get yourself a sword and let d’Artagnan show you how to use it. It’ll make you feel better, knowing how to defend yourself.”

Hans Jacob looks up briefly. His eyes are murky puddles in the blotchy face. “Against some things you can’t defend yourself,” he says. “You don’t know… You haven’t seen.”

“Oh, I think Porthos has,” Athos says, cutting short the outpouring born out of the eternal conviction of youth that they have personally invented suffering. 

“Den Galgenbaum…” Hans Jacob mutters and falls silent. His limbs go limp, his body slouches, and it’s like watching a clockwork winding down and stop.

Planchet drinks his wine and picks up the tale. “Trees with bodies in them. We saw them as we made our way back to France. The soldiers, most of them are mercenaries, they don’t just kill other soldiers. They attack farms, convents, villages… And they hang people. Dozens of them from the same oak. We saw them as we rode past, like pendants upon a gallows tree.”

“Hanging is a swift death,” Aramis says, thinking of men he saw dying in slow agony of infected musket wounds, of shredded limbs.

“But what happens to the hanged man?” Planchet asks.

“He gets eaten by crows and ravens,” Athos says in a hard voice.

“That’s no worse than getting eaten by rats and worms in the ground,” says Porthos.

Hans Jacob lifts his head. “He comes back.” 

Aramis knocks over his cup.

“Easy, there!” Porthos exclaims, leaping up as the wine runs down the table and dribbles into his lap. “That’s expensive stuff.”

“Aramis, are you drunk?” d’Artagnan asks.

He takes a deep breath and pulls himself together. “Just clumsy,” he forces himself to smile, but the corners of his mouth feel brittle like old mortar and he fears they might break.

“You’re never clumsy,” Athos says. He sounds almost angry, as if Aramis wasting wine insulted him personally. His face has frozen into a mask of marble, from the depth of which his eyes glitter like shards of blue ice.

Porthos waits till the wine is no longer dripping off the edge of the table and sits back down. “The dead are dead,” he declares, and Aramis loves him for it.

“Not everywhere,” Planchet shakes his head. “Surely you have read of those resurgents rising in Hungary, in Livonia or Walachia? They wander restless between sunset and dawn, hiding then in their graves at cock-crow.”

“Livonia?” Porthos says. “Where did I hear that recently?”

“That’s where Marsac fought in the Polish campaign,” says Athos.

“Oh yeah, as a _mercenary_ ,” says Porthos.

“At least he picked the Catholic side,” Athos says, his voice bone-dry.

“How do you know?” Aramis asks once he can make his wooden tongue and lips work. He swallows convulsively. “How do you know that?”

“I talked to him,” Athos says matter-of-factly. “That day, when you went off on your own and left him with us, to escort him back to Constance’s house. Remember? What do you think we did then, sit silently gazing into each other’s eyes?”

Planchet, convivial storyteller that he is, senses the interest his words have aroused and launches into his tale with gusto. A man as much-travelled as he is will always have the advantage of being able to tell stories of far-away lands his way. “Upior, they call it there. If a man dies a violent death, if he doesn’t get a proper burial, his soul is made unclean, and an unclean soul will come back to torment the living.”

“What, like a ghost?” d’Artagnan asks. Athos silences him with a glance.

“No, the ghost is just a dead man’s spirit. An upior is the body risen from the grave, driven by a soul that seeks revenge. Wiedergänger, as he calls them in German.” Planchet jerks his head at Hans Jacob. “Again-walker.”

Beside him, Aramis feels Porthos shift and hears him hmph impatiently. Porthos is the realest man Aramis knows, and he moves closer to him until their shoulders brush. He’d love to press his leg against Porthos’ under the table, to feel that reassuring solidity of his along the full length of his own body, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want Porthos to know how jittery he is.

“They come back to their families.” Hans Jacob says in a high-pitched voice, and he suddenly appears no older than thirteen. 

“They can’t come after you all the way to Paris,” d’Artagnan says in a tone that indicates he had led this conversation before. Aramis can just about picture it: d’Artagnan startled awake by the boy’s screams, drunk with sleep and in a foul mood, attempting to reason the nightmares away and praying that the master of the house won’t wake.

“They don’t have to.” Hans Jacob’s words are stumbling over themselves, are more Latin than French now, and quite a bit of German, and Aramis isn’t sure that the others understand what the boy is telling them, but he does. “They stay in their graves and suck your life out of you from there. They eat their own flesh in their grave, this is how they suck the life out of their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, by eating themselves. They gnaw on their own flesh and their shrouds, this is how they get stronger and stronger, and that’s how they devour you,” he whispers.

“Do you believe that?” Athos asks Planchet.

The man shrugs. “We’ve all seen someone waste away after their loved one died,” he says.

“Yeah, but most people don’t,” says Porthos.

“When someone dies of the plague, his family fall ill, too. I’ve seen this happen, I’m sure so have you. Why should they fall ill if there wasn’t any connection?”

“That’s because the plague atomies are released and attach themselves to the living,” Porthos insists.

“True! Their atomies float around and fill the space where there are none. But living people emanate atomies, too, all the time. We know that, because we feel the warmth of other people’s bodies, and we smell other people’s scent. And we can feel another person’s vitality, too, we sense if somebody is low in spirits or if they’re feeling elated. And as any modern physician will tell you, atomies of a similar strength, of a similar nature always attempt to come together and keep together: this is what is called the universal sympathy, and it is one of the strongest forces in the universe. The mutual attraction of atomies is the attraction of the compass needle to the great iron mountains of the north, that’s how strong it is. So if there is an unclean soul walking the earth, it will make use of the force of sympathy to claw its way back into life. It will suck out the atomies of a living person, one to whom it had strong ties during its lifetime.”

Porthos leans back heavily against the wall behind him. “I’m too drunk for this kind of talk,” he declares.

“I’m not drunk enough,” Aramis whispers.

“You are a philosopher, Monsieur,” Athos says. He fills Planchet’s cup again and says: “But tell me this, if that were true – why doesn’t the plague victim come back to life, after sucking out the vitality of the living person? It seems to me there is a flaw in your argument.”

“Ah, but Monsieur,” Planchet grins. “I never said it’s a good plan. They’re dead, unclean souls. How do you expect them to be clever strategists?”

Porthos stares at him and then bursts out laughing. “You had me there for a moment, Monsieur!” he says, wagging his finger at Planchet. “For a moment I thought you really believed the stories of dead men walking the earth and of vengeful spirits.”

“They are just stories, Monsieur Porthos,” Planchet says. “Ways to while away the hours on a long journey. As a young man, I travelled on the Silk Road, all the way to Catai, and back again with a caravan of spice traders. Ah, you should hear the stories they tell!”

Not tonight, though; the time for stories is over. Night has long fallen, and Aramis feels the fatigue deep in his bones. He should get up, go home and go to bed, but it seems like an impossible task. It is much more comfortable to sit here, in company and surrounded by the light of many candles, leaning against Porthos’ shoulder, than to go back to an empty bedchamber and wait for the wiedergänger to appear. D’Artagnan is fidgeting in his seat and yawning openly, but he’s too ambitious to be the first one to leave. Porthos appears quite happy to stay where he is, now that he’s no longer locking horns with Planchet, and Athos will not budge until the last drop of wine has been drunk. Aramis attempts to match his pace, but that is an even more impossible task than getting up.

In the end, it is Planchet who gives the signal. “Jean-Jacques, go and fetch the saddlebags from the donkey,” he says, yawning. “You can leave your bundle here, boy!” he shouts after him as he scurries away, clutching his possessions to his chest. “I don’t know what this is all about.” He shakes his head. “He never lets go of it, one might think it’s full of gold or precious stones.”

“Or memories,” Athos says. “The boy’s lost everything. That’s his only link to the past.”

Aramis stands up. He has to steady himself against the table, but only with his fingertips, and he hopes it passes unnoticed. “All right?” Porthos asks.

“Just going for a piss,” Aramis says and walks to the door in a straight line.

It rained at last. The air is damp and clear, and the distant roar of thunder tells Aramis that it might rain again. He hopes it will.

Now that he’s out of his friends’ sight, he permits his body to sway as he makes his way to the pen behind the tavern where pack animals are likely to be kept. The donkey must be somewhere around here. And whilst he’s out here, he might just as well have a piss, and so he braces himself against the wall with one hand, leans his forehead against the damp wood and thinks. Eventually, he thrusts his hand in his pocket, pulls out a ring rosary, grits his teeth and breaks off the cross from the ring. With the thoroughness of the drunk he checks that he has tucked in, buckled and belted himself properly again and continues towards the pen.

“Hans Jacob,” he says softly. The boy jumps and then cowers like a cornered, wild-eyed animal. Aramis raises both hands, his palms turned outward. “It’s all right, it’s just me.” He steps closer. The boy merely stares at him with huge pale eyes, trying to make his entire body disappear by standing still.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Aramis says, slowly, in German. “I just want to ask you something.”

“What?” So soft it’s barely a sigh in the air.

Aramis looks up into the dark sky, takes a deep breath and says: “Have you ever seen one? A wiedergänger.”

Hans Jacob flinches. Aramis can see his shoulders tremble like a small bird’s. He puts a hand on the boy’s arm and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Look at me,” he says. “Listen. Listen. If you ever see one,” he takes the boy’s hand and presses the cross into his palm, “take this. It will keep you safe, I promise.”

Hans Jacob looks down at the small cross with its uneven, sharp edge at the bottom of the T, and then into Aramis’ face. Aramis smiles. “I know you have no reason to trusts Catholics,” he says, “but we do all believe in the same God. And in the Cross.”

The boy lowers his bundle, then, and presses a hand to his chest. 

“Ah, I see. You’ve got your own? Well, this one’s special. It’s been broken, here, as you can see, but it’s not destroyed. Choose a prayer to speak with it, always the same one. Not a Catholic one if you don’t want to, even if you’ll become a Catholic in time. This will be _yours_ , understand?” 

Hans Jacob nods. “Well done,” Aramis says. He looks up, watches clouds shift past the gibbous moon; feels the first drops on his upturned face as the rain sets in again. “When you get back in, tell them I’ve gone home,” he says and turns to leave. “Oh, and, Hans Jacob? That was good advice, what Porthos said. Get yourself a sword. Get d’Artagnan to teach you how to handle it. It’ll help.”

The sky breaks when he’s halfway home and pours rivers of water over him. Aramis halts, takes off his hat, unbuckles his coat and stands with his arms spread wide, permitting the rain to soak through his shirt, penetrate his skin down to the very marrow of his bones, cleanse him to his very core.

~*~

Tonight, he can’t sleep because the rain is too loud. It hammers against the window, rattles the eaves gutter and rushes in Aramis’ ears and head. He’s got used to the still of the hot nights when the city lay asleep in deathlike stupor. The wine that courses through his blood makes the ceiling swirl above his head. The gallows tree is going round and round and round like a spinning top, twirling the bodies of the dead in a merry dance, and then he happens to glance at the door and knows that he’s come full circle.

“You’re still here,” he says to Marsac.

“Did you miss me?”

“How can I miss you if you never went away?”

“You know, Aramis, I never expected us to have conversations when I came to you,” Marsac says, appraising Aramis with a pensive look.

“What did you expect, then? To feed on me? _Brother_?”

Marsac smiles. “You are so full of life, Aramis”. Its clothes are ragged and filthy; the shroud wrapped around its head and body is frayed and full of holes, its edges chewed on. Aramis’ eyes dart to the hand that rests against the doorframe; the fingers are gnawed to the bone.

“You know I really like watching you like that, in bed, suspended between waking and sleeping,” it says tenderly. It watches him then, and Aramis watches it back, motionless but for the rise and fall of his chest. He wonders if every inhale of his is like a breath of life for Marsac. He wonders what would happen if he stopped breathing, if Marsac would vanish then. He wonders if he can fight the force of sympathy which attracts Marsac to him like the iron mountains in the north attract the needle of the compass. He wonders if it is possible for a man’s animus to simply fade away, if when he lies here quietly for long enough his body will become still forever. A sudden jolt yanks him back from the brink of sleep and he sits, gasping and clutching his cross.

“Leave me alone,” he spits out through clenched teeth. “You’re dead, go rest in peace. Go to the devil for all I care, just leave me alone.” With his other hand, he reaches for his sword, and he clambers on his hands and knees to the edge of the bed, rolls off and closes in on Marsac. “I will kill you again, I swear it,” he whispers. He’s closer to it now than he’s ever been before. “I will kill myself if that’s what it takes to destroy you.” He stops, his sword poised. “Go.”

It turns, then, silent like a ghost. And Aramis sees, for the first time, the side of its face that was hitherto hidden in shadows, a gaping, jagged-edge hole where flesh and skin used to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Holy Roman Empire (of the German Nation) = Germany
> 
> 2\. I put “Friends and Enemies” at the end of 1630 and this story is set in summer 1631. In January 1631, Richelieu signed a contract with the Swedish (Protestants) and gave them money to support them against the German Emperor. His aim was to weaken the German / Habsburg power in Europe. Queen Anne was not happy.
> 
> 3\. The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) was a hugely traumatic event for Europe, and whole regions were depopulated (it also coincided with/precipitated plague epidemics). War, destruction, the inevitability of death and the transiency of human existence became important and ubiquitous motifs in art and literature, oddly enough in combination with the baroque lust for life (“memento mori” and “carpe diem”): morbidity and gore go hand in hand with opulence and hedonism. 
> 
> 4\. The Slavic upiór/upir/upyr and variations thereof is pretty much a multi-purpose term for different types of creatures, depending on the region and time period (and personal beliefs, I guess). In many versions it’s related to the vampire, i.e. it feeds on the life/blood of its victims, but it’s also very much a zombie or ghoul-like creature in that it’s the walking, flesh-eating dead.
> 
> 5\. “Wiedergänger”: what Planchet said, “again-walker” (in German)
> 
> 6\. Les Misères et les Malheurs de la Guerre (the miseries and calamities of the war) is the title of a series of etchings illustrating crimes against civilians in the Thirty Years’ War.
> 
> 7\. Ars Moriendi (the art of dying) is the title of 15th century texts explaining how to “die well”.


	3. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this bit got longer than planned, because I decided to put in more Aramis-Athos interaction. And so it's turned into a whole additional chapter that wasn't part of the original outline.

“What did you think of Planchet’s story, then?” Athos asks during the brief respite that they use to catch their breaths and have a drink of water. He and Aramis are sparring, slipping in mud on every other step. The air is grey with drizzle, and the fine droplets cling to their hair and skin, seep through their shirts. Aramis hopes that nobody realises how very much not up to it he is. If he doesn’t want to stumble and impale himself on Athos’ sword one of these days, he really needs to get a full night’s sleep very soon. He won’t be able to fool Athos for much longer; in fact, he’s quite sure he isn’t fooling him now. But then, Athos isn’t fooling him, either. Aramis suspects his nights to be as sleepless as his own, which is lucky, because their both lack of focus and stamina makes them a reasonably good match.

“Which one?” Aramis asks, trying not to gasp for breath and hoping that the twinge that bothers him is not turning into a side stitch.

“About the Cardinal allying himself with the Protestants,” Athos says. “The rest were just tales, but this one may have a bearing on us.”

“You mean we’ll be sent off to kill Catholics,” Aramis says, wiping his forehead with the back of his gloved hand. “And hang farmers’ wives from oak trees.”

“Enough!” Athos all but snarls, leaning in very closely with eyes that appear chipped off a block of ice. “Do not mock, Aramis.”

As always when he witnesses Athos’ composure slip, Aramis feels guilty. It’s an irrational feeling, he hasn’t done anything to cause or deserve Athos’ anger, and yet guilt and shame unfurl in his chest and prickle on his skin.

“I’m not mocking,” he says as calmly as he can. “I may be flippant at times, but not in this. You know that, Athos.” He can’t reign in the apologetic tone that slips out despite himself.

There is a brittleness in Athos’ face that unsettles him, as if a marble mask were cracking from the inside out, even though the surface is flawless still.

“Are you two finished?” Porthos shouts from where he is lounging on the bench. He’s dipping chunks of bread into the bowl of stew that Serge brought out for the three of them, and he has been watching them spar with casual interest.

They both startle. “I’m sorry,” Athos says in an undertone. “That was uncalled for.”

“I’m sorry,” Aramis says and pats Athos’ chest, permitting his hand to linger just a bit longer on the sturdy, solid human weight of his, to feel the rapid beat of his heart beneath the worn fabric of his shirt. “I should choose my words more carefully.”

“I think so!” Athos calls over his shoulder to Porthos. “Why, do you want to have a go?”

“With either of you two? Nah,” he stands up and stretches, rolls his shoulders, straightens his back. “It’d be like punching a kitten.”

Aramis and Athos exchange a glance and look away quickly. Porthos is grinning, and there’s an edge to it. “Don’t worry, I’m not asking.” He pats the table, just by the bowl of stew. “Sit down, the pair of you, and eat. I’ve left plenty. I’m going to see Treville now and when I’m back I want to see this bowl empty.” He strides off and turns round on the stairs: “And don’t you dare involve any chickens in this.”

“That’s us told,” Athos says. Aramis looks at him and manages a faint smile.

“Do you want to tell me-”

“No,” says Athos. “I will eat that infernal stew, but don’t you start.”

~*~

The bowl is empty before Porthos returns. To his surprise, Aramis realises that he wouldn’t mind a second helping. A vague low-belly nausea has been preventing him from eating properly for days, but his stomach has finally reawakened. “Are you not having your bread?” He reaches over and takes it from where it sits before Athos untouched. “Athos…” He crunches a corner between his thumb and fingers and watches the crumbs fall to the table. “Have you and Porthos been talking about me?” he asks in one breath.

Athos looks up sharply. His voice is soft, though. “Always.”

Aramis nods in acknowledgment. “It’s not…” he begins before he knows where he’s going with it. “I’m not… Just, don’t worry about me. I haven’t been sleeping well because of that bloody heat. It’s nothing.”

Athos stares at him for an endless moment and then nods. “Thank you. I’m reassured.”

Aramis lifts one corner of his mouth in a feeble grin. “Are you?”

“Absolutely.”

Porthos appears on top of the stairs and returns to their table.

“I’m assuming the Cardinal hasn’t changed his mind?” Athos says at the sight of his purposeful step and determined face.

“That’s right. He still wants us to go and harass that woman. Why do we always have to do the donkeywork for him? He’s got his own men.”

“Better us than the Red Guards,” Aramis says.

Porthos smirks at him. “You don’t mind visiting the lovely Mme de Clermont, do you?”

As a matter of fact, Aramis doesn’t. Ever since the temperatures have become bearable, he’s been thinking of sharing the bed with someone again. He’s not sure what would happen to Marsac. Would it arrive by his bed anyway? Would the presence of another person keep it away? Would only Aramis be able to see it? Would it perhaps be safer to schedule the rendezvous for the daytime rather than the night? He realises that he’s attempting to arrange a potential tryst in such a way as to accommodate a phantom and curses under his breath.

“I don’t mind at all,” he says. “In fact, I can go on my own if you don’t want to come.”

Porthos throws his head back and laughs, and even Athos cracks a smile.

“Yes, all right,” Aramis says. “Let’s go together, then.”

“First thing tomorrow,” Porthos says.

Aramis sighs. “You can’t call on a lady before noon. We’ll go after lunch.”

~*~

His days have become disjointed lately. He can’t tell how much time passes and finds himself surprised at the sight of the sun setting. Tonight, it is setting red amidst low-hanging grey clouds. Porthos is surrounded by a gaggle of men who shout and whoop and cheer as he wins one hand after another against Bouchard. The young man only joined up two weeks ago, he’ll learn. He’ll learn that one should never flaunt one’s wealth and brag about one’s luck at cards at the same time. Athos is watching them from the shadows (the shadows), leaning against the post with one shoulder, with his hat pulled over his eyes (his hat pulled over his eyes, the man in the church with his hat pulled over his eyes).

Aramis gasps and his body jerks awake. He realises he’s been drifting off, right there at the table. He reaches for the flagon of wine with a shaking hand and pours himself a cup. He lets his fingers linger on the smooth surface, damp with condensation. It should be cool to the touch, but he can’t feel it. His fingers are numb. Aramis looks down. Candlelight throws trembling shadows on his hand, making his fingers appear gnarled like dry twigs (gnawed on, bitten to the bone). Aramis clenches his teeth and flexes his fingers, presses his palms against the surface of the table, determined to feel the texture of the wood, its grooves and ridges, its splinters. 

From the corner of his eye, he spots something stir and turns his head sharply. Athos has pushed himself off the post and is slinking towards him. He’s still several yards away, and Aramis wishes he’d take his hat off, it obscures his face and makes it (hollow, shadowed, fragmented). He blinks, and when he opens his eyes again, Athos is standing right beside him. He sits down next to Aramis and helps himself to wine. “You’re not hiding another deserter, are you,” he says. Aramis blinks again, in confusion.

“You’re hiding _something_.” Athos isn’t even looking at him, and yet Aramis feels scrutinised to the very bottom of his soul.

“No,” he says and laughs, rather too giddily perhaps. “I am not hiding another deserter.” He continues to laugh, lightheaded, until Athos puts a hand on his wrist and squeezes.

“Good,” Athos says. 

Aramis is staring down at their both hands, and he panics momentarily because he can’t tell which one is his and which one is Athos’.

“Is there something wrong?” Athos asks, keeping his voice low and even, meant just for Aramis’ ears (meant only for his eyes and ears, only he can see and hear it).

“I think I’ve overexerted myself,” Aramis says, pulling his arm back so that his hand slides over the table in its wake, a long slow drag as though he was trying to swim through honey. “My hands’ve gone numb, I’ve been overdoing it with the sparring.” He twists his wrist until his palm faces upward.

Athos takes Aramis’ hand in his and rubs his thumb into the centre of Aramis’ palm. “Can you feel this?”

Aramis furrows his brow and watches, detached, as Athos broad thumb attempts to massage life (life) back into his flesh (flesh). Athos scratches a trail across Aramis’ palm with his nail and Aramis’ hand jerks away.

“Perhaps you should lay off sword practice for a couple of days,” Athos says. Aramis shakes his head. No, that’s unthinkable. He needs the exertion to push his body to the brink of exhaustion and then over the edge so that sleep will claim him at last. It’s either sparring or poppy wine, and he knows which one he prefers (poppy dreams are alive).

“I’m fine,” he says. “What did _you_ think of Planchet’s story?”

“Pardon?”

“Planchet’s story, you wanted to talk about it.”

“That was hours ago.”

“Yes.” Aramis knows that. “I know that. But we never finished that conversation.”

“Well. I think Richelieu would make a deal with the devil if it benefitted France.”

“And did, apparently.”

“The Swedes are not actually the spawn of hell.” One corner of Athos’ mouth quirks in a wry non-smile. “Despite what you were taught at the seminary.”

“No. The Habsburgs are,” Aramis says, and he thinks of the Queen, who was born into Europe’s most powerful dynasty through no fault of her own. “If we’re sent to war-”

“Then we’ll go.” 

“I’m not a deserter,” Aramis says before he can think. Athos treats him to a sidelong glance that he doesn’t like at all.

“I know that, Aramis,” Athos says slowly.

He’s not a deserter, he’s not like Marsac, he will not turn into Marsac, no matter how strong the force of sympathy is between them. The back of his neck tingles, and Aramis knows that this is because somebody is watching him, watching him from the shadows, and he turns his head and sees nobody standing behind him. 

“I’m going home.” He stands abruptly and puts his hat on. Athos stands likewise.

“Aramis,” he says. He’s so close Aramis can see the lines around his eyes and mouth, even in the dim light. “Before you go you’ve got to know one thing: whatever it is that you’ve done Porthos and I will never judge you.”

Aramis knows what he has done. He killed an old friend, and his pain and regret have been strong enough to drag Marsac back from the grave. He’s condemned a man he loved as a brother to walk the earth after death, just because he couldn’t bear the thought of having killed him, and how could anyone forgive that? How could Athos ever trust him ever again. Marsac left him to die in the forest. Marsac was merciful.

Aloud he says: “I know. Thank you.”

~*~

He leaves a candle burning as he undresses and sheds every last piece of clothing. He falls backward onto the bed and throws one arm over his eyes, and he listens. He listens to the creak of the floorboards, to the groan of the wood that surrounds him, to the chirp of the cricket that nests somewhere in the wall. His free hand toys with the cross on his chest, strokes lower and lower and comes to rest in his groin. The swell of his cock is familiar and comfortable beneath his palm. He’s not particularly aroused, but the tightening of his abdomen, the heaviness in his groin, the twitch of flesh as it fills under his hand feel good, and it’s been so long since he’s felt good. It’s been so long since he’s been with a woman.

Tomorrow, he’s going to see Sophia again. Aramis rolls over and blows out the candle. He doesn’t want Marsac to see him like this, an illuminated body writhing in the sheets. Delicious, delightful Sophia, who made him recite poetry when he was thrusting into her and who quoted verses back at him. A breathless laugh caught deep in her throat and he forced it out with every shove of his hips until it pearled out and trickled from her mouth onto his neck and then down his spine to his loins. He pictures her face, the beautiful agony as she spent beneath him and around him, her nails buried in his flesh. She used to bite him, all around his middle where nobody but she would ever see, marking his stomach and loins with purple bruises. The pressure around his cock when he sank inside her. He rolls his hand into a loose fist and licks a path from the heel to the tip of his little finger, wetting it with his tongue to emulate the moisture of Sophia’s sex. He pushes his cock into his hand, but it’s not hard enough, he’s not hard enough to penetrate her, and the fantasy shatters like a broken mirror before his very eye, leaving him alone with his very real and exhausted body, with ribs jutting out like the ridge of a carcass and the hollow of his stomach like a black hole torn into his flesh. “Oh _fuck_ ,” Aramis groans and snorts with mirthless laughter. Well, at least he won’t have to worry anymore about accommodating Marsac during a hypothetical rendezvous. 

He curls his hand gently around his cock and feels it go soft, unspent.

“Are you there yet?” he asks without opening his eyes. There is no reply. Nothing, but the chirping of the cricket in the wall and a branch whipping against the windowpane. Its erratic t-ch, t-ch, t---ch, … t-ch is like lashing applied directly to his brain, like an explosion of swirling colours behind his closed eyelids. Blood bursting from a man’s mouth and nose and spilling over Aramis’ eyes, blinding him, flooding his mouth, sticky and sweet, it’s the Swedish drink, and he’s choking and gagging and thrashes awake and rolls over just in time to throw up on the floor.

Through the roar in his ears, he hears it, at last. The clack-clack, clack-clack, clack-clack of heeled boots in the hall. The door creaks open. Aramis wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and picks up his sword, fumbling and almost dropping it before he manages to get a good grip.

“What do you want,” he hisses. “You’ve taken everything. I’m sorry I killed you. I should have died, too.” He’s spitting out clutters of words.

“Shh…” It has come inside and is seating itself on the edge of Aramis’ bed. “Hush.” A rotten stench fills his nostrils and Aramis retches again, but his stomach is empty. He can’t see its face, not under the wide-brimmed hat. All there is is the smell of decomposition and death and a cold that sucks all feeling out of his fingers, his lips, his heart. “Sleep, Aramis,” its voice says somewhere above his head. “Sleep.” His eyes are burning with tiredness. “We were brothers once.” Aramis feels his hand seized and lifted, pressed against rough fabric and rigid bone. “Lay your hand upon my heart, dear brother. Can you not hear the throbbing within the chamber? A carpenter dwells in there, horrible to behold. He’s building a coffin for the both of us. The hammering and knocking day in and day out has long robbed us of our sleep. Hurry, oh master carpenter, hurry, and let us rest in blessed slumber.”


	4. Emblematisches Lust-Cabinet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW for this chapter: suicidal themes, discussion of off-screen suicide (nothing graphic). Though if you’ve made it this far, that probably doesn’t come as a surprise.**

  
_"The next morning, as soon as the shades of Night, pursued by the constables of the Sun, had fled the country"_

His beard needs trimming. He feels it sprawl out of control and wishes he hadn’t pawned his mirror, he’d like to be able to see himself and assess the damage. His hair needs cutting, too, but Aramis can’t muster up the courage to go to the barber. He rubs his cheek with his hand over and over again, he can’t help himself. The barber would hold a cutthroat razor to his face, would slide the blade over his skin, would cut out bits of flesh and leave his face riddled with raw, jagged-edged holes. 

No. He would not. Aramis concentrates very hard and reminds himself that there is nothing amiss with his face, nor with the rest of his body. He wears the familiar scars, but there are no fresh wounds. He checked, the moment he resurfaced from the daze he calls sleep these days, he checked himself, checked if he’s been (devoured as he slept). 

Still, he doesn’t go to the barber. He will walk straight to the garrison to meet Athos and Porthos and to go and visit the lovely Sophia, Sophia who always found him beautiful and told him so.

Aramis looks down at his hands as he pulls on his gloves. There is nothing amiss. He flexes his fingers, wraps his right hand around the hilt of his sword and presses his forehead to the wooden door’s cool surface, breathing in and out, in and out, until his heartbeat settles down and his head stops spinning. Then, he takes a deep breath, puts on his hat and lifts the latch.

He steps out into the street with a determined smile. The air is blue like smoke on this summer morning, a soft gauzy veil that flutters around him, separating him from the crowd through which he walks. The world is slow and lazy, it oozes like honey, and he walks through it as if through a dream. He is awake. Aramis is sure of that. He’s not asleep, he’s never asleep. 

But, just like in a dream, he is suddenly seated at the table with Athos and Porthos and he doesn’t know how he got there. Athos is cleaning his pistol and Porthos is rolling dice with lazy hands, and Aramis realises that he should clean his pistol, too, and pulls it out, but then he remembers he did that only this morning, before he even dressed. He remembers distinctly sitting on the chaise longue in his boudoir with the pistol in one hand and a ball in the other, and he’s sure he cleaned it. He looked up then and his gaze fell on the Bible, and he stood up and opened it and read a verse in the Book of Ruth. _For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God_ , and he closed the book again, walked into his bedroom and got dressed. 

“Jean-Jacques has hanged himself.” D’Artagnan staggers in just after they finished their lunch. He's white as chalk, and he sinks onto the bench as if his knees had simply given way.

Porthos goes very still and Athos’ hand clenches around his pistol as his head snaps up. Aramis’ heart leaps into his throat; the pulse of blood is so powerful it propels his headache from an indefinite pressure somewhere behind his eyes to a fully-blown explosion, as if his brain tried to escape his skull through his bones. 

“I’m sorry,” Porthos says quietly, but d’Artagnan isn’t listening.

“Constance told me, Bonacieux was furious. He says it’s a disgrace-”

“Well, he would,” Athos says in a calm voice that belies the emotions that are seeping through the cracks in the marble mask. Aramis doubts that d’Artagnan has noticed how fucking distressed Athos is.

D’Artagnan slumps in his seat. “I was teaching him how to use a sword. I thought he was getting the hang of it. You know, for someone who has been educated to be a scholar. I thought I was helping.”  


A look passes between Athos, Porthos and Aramis, each of them expressing what the others are thinking.

To Aramis’ surprise, it is Athos who speaks. “You can’t save everyone, d’Artagnan,” he says, quite gently. “Sometimes people make their own, stupid, choices.”

“They said to take him away, to bury him outside the city gates somewhere. Like an animal. Can’t anything be done about it?”

“He took his own life, he won’t be buried in sacred ground,” Aramis says. “I’m sorry, d’Artagnan, that’s just the way it is.”

“But he was a Protestant, don’t they have different rules?”

“Self-slaughter is a grave sin. I think this is something on which we all agree.” There is something, someone standing behind him, just outside his field of vision. Aramis turns his head. It has moved behind him, a shadow, a silhouette perhaps. When he tries to focus, it vanishes. He’s too slow to catch it. Perhaps later, he’ll just have to concentrate.

He turns back to the others and realises he’s missed a chunk of the conversation. How long has he been staring at an empty spot of air? 

D’Artagnan is looking at the ground, his arms looped around himself, hands tucked into his armpits. He raises his head abruptly. “Will you come with me?” Aramis is not sure if he means all of them or either of them, but again, it is Athos who speaks.

“Yes. All right.” He turns to Porthos and Aramis. “Go to Mme de Clermont without me.” He picks up his cloak, puts on his hat and takes d’Artagnan by the upper arm. He steers the boy through the gate and they both disappear in the hustle and bustle of the rue du Vieux-Colombier.

Porthos whistles. “Poor kid,” he says, without specifying which one he means. “How desperate do you have to be to turn to self-slaughter?”

“He was terrified they’d come after him. The,” Aramis breathes in, “wiedergänger.”

“In a way they probably did. Sucked his life out of him.” Porthos smiles grimly. “Looks like Planchet was right after all. They can reach you from behind the grave.”

“Don’t,” Aramis says. “Please. Don’t.”

Porthos gives him an odd look but doesn’t say anything. They leave the garrison and walk side by side towards Mme de Clermont’s hôtel, until the silence becomes a leaden weight that Aramis is forced to lug around with him, until he’s got to say something lest he should scream.

“Athos seemed upset,” is what his perverse desire for self-torment prompts him to say. He should’ve been talking about the weather or the saddle on which he is tempted to spend 100 pistoles that he doesn’t have or his desire to see Sophia again. Instead, he continues: “He won’t be able to do anything, not when the boy hanged himself.”

“He was terrified of the gallows tree,” Porthos shakes his head. “To think he chose this type of death for himself.”

“Athos seemed upset,” Aramis says and frowns. “Did I just say that?”

“You did,” Porthos glances at him. Aramis bites his lip and looks away. “You two, though.” Porthos shakes his head. “What am I supposed to do with you, eh?”

“I’m assuming that’s a rhetorical question?”

Porthos shakes his head again in exasperation, but he chuckles fondly at the same time. “This kind of talk is exactly what I mean,” he says. “‘A rhetorical question’, my arse. I’m concerned.”

“Don’t be.” Aramis is too tired to fight for much longer. The temptation is great to give in and to admit to his nightmares, to his bone-melting fear that he’s losing his grip on reality and slipping away into a life that exists only in his head.

Porthos never does that. A sudden wave of affection floods over Aramis; affection, though, that is laced with envy. Porthos doesn’t hide, his pain is raw and immediate. He’s real and true and he is who he is in a way that Aramis has never mastered. Porthos was not brought up on ballads and tales. A horrible image flashes through his mind, Porthos slain on a battlefield. That is not part of the plan. Aramis knows that they will die, but they will die together, Porthos will not die before him, because that is unthinkable. Aramis would have to make him to come back. He’d consort with alchemists and he’d study the fucking force of sympathy. He’d betray his beliefs and defy God if it meant he’d get to keep Porthos around (now you know what that’s like). 

A shroud lifts in his head and he realises that this is what he is to Marsac: the last solid presence in a world of shadows.

~*~

Mme de Clermont resides in a hôtel in the rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, not far from the famous Hôtel de Rambouillet. Her house is much humbler than the magnificent palais that Madame de Rambouillet inhabits. Still, its façade is adorned with cornices and friezes, architraves and pilasters, in a play of red brick, white stone, and dark slate. Once the door opens to admit them in, Aramis breathes more freely. The air here is cool and fresh, redolent of roses and lavender. Sophia has fresh flowers brought from gardens and greenhouses every day. On their way through the succession of salons and cabinets, stepping from mother-of-pearl trimmed with gold into ocean-green trimmed with silver into burnt umber trimmed with russet and tangerine, Aramis and Porthos pass countless corbeilles that waft the sweet perfume of flowers and fruit.

But there are shadows here, too, and something stirs in one of them, Aramis sees it move out of the corner of his eye, _oh no no no, not here, not now, please no_ , before he realises they are walking past a mirror. His and Porthos’ reflections have just vanished from view, and there is nothing else, nothing has slipped behind the frame in their wake. Nothing is following him and he does not turn around, he will not turn around and check.

In one of the cabinets, a crowd of people is gathered around a lady at a virginal. Aramis recognises the beautiful Mademoiselle Paulet, nicknamed by her many admirers ‘La Lionne’ because of her golden mane. He smiles and nods in passing, and he is just about to step over the threshold into the next room, when he hears it. A voice, clear like a bell. “You need help.”

Just that. Aramis doesn’t turn around. There’s no-one there, there never is.

Their hostess receives her guests in her private chamber, reclining on her bed – a habit that she copied from the great Madame de Rambouillet. To Aramis’ surprise, there is but one other person in the room. He is seated on a stool in the ruelle, the narrow space between the lady’s bed and the wall, and he gets up when Aramis and Porthos enter.

“Aramis!” he says, bowing. “How fortunate that you should happen to arrive here just in time to settle a matter upon which Sophia and I cannot agree.”

“Don’t listen to him, Aramis.” Sophia holds out both arms to him and pulls him down as he bows to kiss her hand so that he ends up sitting on the edge of the bed. “I’m so happy to see you. It’s been too long.”

“It has,” he agrees in a low voice. “And I believe you’ve met Porthos?”

“Of course I have.” She stretches one arm towards Porthos, who bows likewise and kisses her hand. “It’s always a pleasure to see you, too, Monsieur Porthos. You are too rare a guest here. Aramis should bring you one day.”

“Thank you, Madame,” Porthos says, and Aramis can tell he’s trying not to smile; Sophia’s charm is as always irresistible. “But you might think differently once you hear why we’re here.”

“Oh dear,” Sophia says and pats Aramis’ hand. “Am I in trouble with the King?”

“With the Cardinal,” Aramis says. He puts his hat on the foot of the bed and turns back to her. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh dear,” Sophia says again, but a small smile is curled in the corners of her mouth. Aramis thinks of kissing her. If not for the presence of the other two men… He glances across and encounters an amused smirk. Sophia follows his gaze and her smile deepens.

“Monsieur de Saint-Savin,” she says, “has just been talking about the Cardinal.”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘talk’, exactly,” says Saint-Savin. “I’d use a different word entirely, but our hostess has already expressed her displeasure at my language.”

“You are not at court, Monsieur,” says Sophia in a voice that vibrates with humour. Aramis wants to press his lips to her throat and feel the purr of her laugh. “We do not condone vulgarities here.”

“I was merely saying,” explains Saint-Savin, lounging in his corner between the bed and the wall. “That if the abbés don’t want to hear certain things, they should not frequent places where those things get said. Can you imagine, Aramis, that an abbé put his hand on his sword and almost challenged me to a duel, just because I took Our Lord’s name in vain? He eventually contented himself with giving me penance: I was to recite De Profundis for our fallen friends. What is that supposed to accomplish? Dogs and river birds make less noise than we do shouting a De Profundis. Why all the bell-ringing and all the Masses to resuscitate the dead?”

Aramis actually feels himself go white as blood drains from his face. His vision blurs and he clenches his hand and rams his nails into his palm, breathing steadily over the roar in his ears. The moment he trusts his voice again, he says brusquely: “The Cardinal doesn’t like your correspondence.”

“Aramis!” Sophia says, all playfulness gone from voice and features. He remembers now why he loved her so: her eyes are shrewd and aware, and she scrutinises him in the same way that is Athos’ wont. He is at once reminded why the Précieuses have nicknamed her ‘Sophia’: ‘wisdom’. She is one of the most sagacious women he’s ever met.

Porthos steps closer and puts his hand on Aramis’ shoulder. “I’m afraid so,” he says. “We are here to tell you that your letter-writing must cease, Madame. The Cardinal,” he glances down at Aramis, clears his throat and continues: “As far as we know he thinks it’s not relevant enough, yet, to do anything about it. But he might change his mind.”

“He wants me to stop writing to my brother,” Sophia says thoughtfully, “because he is Spanish.”

“He stopped the Queen writing to _her_ brother,” Aramis says, “because he is Spanish.”

“What kind of state secrets does he think I might be able to betray? Where does he think I’m getting my information from?” Sophia continues to sound thoughtful, as if her questions were purely rhetorical. Behind the calm façade of her beautiful face, however, Aramis knows that the cogs are whirring. She is sounding them out. She is trying to ascertain which of her channels have been compromised. 

Porthos shrugs. “It is no secret that you are well connected, Madame. Several of the men who attend your literary circles do have access to state secrets.”

“Have all of them been warned off writing letters to their families, too?” Sophia regards Porthos coolly. “Or is it just me?”

“I think you should consider it a compliment,” Saint-Savin says with a cruel little smile. “The Cardinal thinks you’re important enough to bother.”

“He is too generous,” Sophia says. “Well, am I permitted to write one last letter to my brother to inform him that our correspondence must forthwith cease?”

Aramis and Porthos exchange a look. Sophia has prepared for this eventuality. A code is surely in place, any future letters will be despatched through other channels, directed, perhaps, to other addressees. A smile blossoms on Porthos’ face and he shrugs. Aramis mimics the gesture and turns back to Sophia.

“Who are we to stand between a loving sister and her brother,” he murmurs very close to her face. She smells delicious, of oranges and vanilla. “He is your flesh and blood, of course you’ll want to send him one last farewell letter.”

“Just be careful not to put in any compromising information,” says Porthos. “It might fall into the wrong hands.”

“Thank you, Monsieur,” Sophia says seriously. “I will bear this in mind.” Porthos inclines his head.

“Is that all?” Sophia asks. “Did you only come here to deliver the message? Or will you stay for a bit?”

“We’ll stay,” Aramis says quickly, glancing up at Porthos. Porthos smiles knowingly and walks around the bed to seat himself in the ruelle next to Saint-Savin. A flower bouquet sits in a vase in the table next to him and the purple petals sweep against his cheek and neck. He brushes them away impatiently and sneezes.

“You don’t like the scent of tulips, Monsieur?” says Saint-Savin. “You prefer the smell of horses and gunpowder, I presume?”

Porthos nods and looks at him levelly: “And blood.”

Saint-Savin laughs and presses a hand to his chest. “Touché, Monsieur. I always acknowledge a well-executed strike.” 

“You seem out of sorts today, Aramis,” Sophia says. She’s still holding his hand. “And you look pale. You’re not ill, are you?”

“You should try coffee, Aramis,” says Saint-Savin. “It is a wonderful drink and will be en vogue in the finest salons soon. It dries the cold juices, strengthens the liver, cures dropsy and scabies, refreshes the heart and soothes stomach complaints.”

“A miracle cure?” Porthos wrinkles his nose. “I don’t believe in such things.”

“I swear to you, Monsieur Porthos,” says Saint-Savin grinning, “if rumours are to be trusted it even brings people back from the dead.”

“If rumours are to be trusted,” says Porthos, “we will be at war with the Emperor soon. Perhaps you should stock up on coffee to bring all those back from the dead who will fall at the battlefields of Lorraine and Alsace.”

Sophia ignores their repartee. Her hand rests lightly on Aramis’ wrist and she’s watching his fingers toy with the lace lining the duvet. 

“Or is there perhaps someone,” she smiles and runs her fingers down the back of his hand, “who keeps you up all night?”

Aramis blinks. “No.” He carries her hand to his lips and kisses the inside of her wrist. “Really, no.”

“Perhaps someone should,” Saint-Savin suggests.

“Ah but,” Aramis is on familiar ground here, he can play this in his sleep, “as you must surely know, all eligible ladies have left Paris for their summer retreats.”

“Ah, but as _you_ know,” Saint-Savin retorts, “I didn’t necessarily mean a woman.”

Sophia laughs. “He’s been doing this all afternoon,” she explains to Aramis. “Pretending he’s trying to scandalise me.”

“I’m sure he knows better than that,” Aramis says.

“Indeed.” Saint-Savin waves a hand in a dismissive gesture. “I do know better than that. No, Sophia and I have been in fact discussing her writing.”

“The last I heard was you were translating contes from Italian,” says Aramis. He finds he is honestly interested; talking about writing fairy tales makes a pleasant change to the conversations he’s been having lately, real or imagined.

“And now I decided to write my own.”

“What about?”

“The eternal conflict between the real and the supernatural, Aramis. Between the innocent child and the deviant monster.”

“That sounds riveting.”

“Oh, it is. Just imagine: Once upon a time, there was a poor wood-cutter. He had a daughter, who was a young and innocent child. One day in the woods, a daimon appears and offers the father gold if he hands over the child. He does, and the daughter is brought up in a devil’s house. And when she matures into a beautiful girl, a king who happens to pass by falls in love with her and takes her away. The daimon punishes her for leaving by turning her face into that of a goat. The king gets angry and puts her to work as a maid. But oh, fear not! There is a happy ending: she gets the chance to beg the daimon’s forgiveness and is turned back into her own beautiful self. The king is happy; he falls in love again and marries her. Isn’t this how the story always goes?” She smiles.

“I guess so,” Aramis says gently.

“That would never happen to you, Sophia,” Saint-Savin says. “Your beauty is eternal.”

~*~

That is true, Aramis thinks, later, when he and Porthos are wandering back through the meandering cabinets, from burnt umber trimmed with russet and tangerine, through ocean-green trimmed with silver, into mother-of-pearl trimmed with gold. In all those years that he’s known Sophia her eyes have lost nothing of their brightness, nor her hair its lustre. She must have been closer to forty than to thirty, back then when he first came to Paris as a young man and was introduced to her salon. It was his first encounter with such splendour, and he never forgot the flavour and scent of that first heady week, after Sophia took him as her lover. The sweetness that coated his tongue and his senses for days on end. He can’t resist temptation and nicks a couple of peaches from a fruit bowl in passing. Porthos eyes the pineapple: “I swear, one day I will get to taste one of those. I assume you have?”

Aramis merely mmhs. 

“You do look pale, though,” Porthos says as they step outside and walk down the street in the direction of the garrison. “Even he,” he jabs his thumb over his shoulder, “noticed. And the lady was outright concerned. I noticed you permitted _her_ to ask questions.” He leaves the sentence suspended, but Aramis remains silent. If he doesn’t speak, the whole huge _thing_ might simply go away. If only Porthos would let go.

“I don’t understand though how you don’t want to punch him in the face whenever you find himself in company with him. That man is all Italian disease and poncy words.”

“You underestimate him, he is more than that. You never saw him spar. He’s quite a formidable opponent.”

“Hmm…” Porthos doesn’t look at all convinced. “But don’t change the subject. We were talking about how pale you look. Have you been eating your gruel?”

At that, Aramis bursts out laughing. He laughs and laughs until he can’t breathe, and he is wheezing and clutching his side. Porthos is towering above him, looking as if he didn’t know if to laugh also or to slap Aramis. At last, Aramis raises an arm and presses his palm against Porthos’ chest. “I’m all right,” he splutters. “I’m fine, don’t be alarmed. It’s just,” he breaks down in undignified giggles and now Porthos is laughing, too. “I feel like I’m on my deathbed,” Aramis chokes out. “’Have you been eating your gruel’, indeed!” He straightens up again and, with his hand still pressed into Porthos’ chest, asks, quite serious now: “Are you really worried about me?”

“Yes.” Porthos puts his gloved hand over Aramis’. “Of course we are. Of course I am.”

“You weren’t.” Aramis looks away, because the serious dark gaze is too much. “Before, when you left me-” the ‘alone’ is left hanging in the air. ‘To kill an old friend.’ Aramis can’t bring himself to say any of this, it’s too much of a reproach and too much of an admission of weakness. 

“Of course we were,” Porthos reiterates. “We just couldn’t… I just couldn’t stand the idea of helping _him_.”

Aramis laughs shakily. “Are there _any_ of my old friends whom you can stand?” he asks, his voice light as air.

“I like Athos,” Porthos says without missing a beat. “All I’m saying is pick your friends more carefully. That one isn’t good news, either.”

“He taught me the coup de la mouette,” Aramis points out.

“Well, Marsac taught you a couple of things, too, if I’m not mistaken, but what of it? In the end…” Porthos trails off at the sight of Aramis’ face. “Nevermind. That’s in the past now. He’s gone.”

Aramis takes a deep breath and steadies himself. “No, he’s not,” he says softly around the throb of his heart in his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aramis frequenting Parisian literary salons is my head canon. I've posted a short text on the evolution and role of the literary salon, and the role educated women played in the Renaissance, [here on my Tumblr](http://donnaimmaculata.tumblr.com/post/94068734216/women-in-the-renaissance).
> 
> The quote at the beginning of the chapter taken from Neapolitan fairy-tale author Giambattista Basile (1566-1632), who also wrote the story of the goat-faced girl.


	5. Forever Nightshade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TW: discussion of medical procedures, and of suicide. Again, nothing graphic, but potentially disturbing.**  
> 
> Sorry this chapter took so long, but RL deadlines got in the way of fic writing. Clients can be so inconsiderate sometimes. I hope the next (and last) chapter won't take another week.

“Are you saying,” d’Artagnan says slowly, looking at Athos and then back at Aramis, “that the ghost of Marsac tries to kill you?” D’Artagnan is standing in the door, as if poised to bolt at any moment if the madness within the chamber should become too overwhelming. With his arms crossed and his hands tucked into his armpits, he looks like he was shielding himself from them.

“D’Artagnan,” Athos says in tone of voice that Aramis can’t quite decipher. It is a warning, but there’s a pleading note to it, and he closes his eyes in despair. Athos must think him utterly insane if he chooses to plead on his behalf. 

D’Artagnan shrugs; a careless ‘it’s a fair question’ gesture. “That’s what vengeful spirits want, isn’t it?”

“Not kill me, no,” Aramis is speaking with numb lips, all too aware how he must sound too them. “I don’t think he wants revenge. I think he wants to come back to life.”

“He wants to or you want him to?” Athos is leaning against the wall across the room, across d’Artagnan. He, too, has his arms crossed. But where d’Artagnan is light-drenched, Athos is wreathed in shadows.

Porthos is not standing. He sat down by his side the moment Aramis slumped to the floor. Porthos is sitting by his side, leaning against the wall, and Aramis can’t see his face without turning his head, but he feels his warm, solid presence at his shoulder.

“So what do we think? Do we think it’s real?” D’Artagnan is ploughing on with straightforward questions, and Aramis is half annoyed, half grateful. He hates what is happening here, what’s happened to him, that they all _know_ , but there is relief in being able to pass the burden of thinking onto somebody else. 

Athos shifts, and his face is momentarily illuminated by the light from the window. “What do you think, Porthos? Do you believe in apparitions?”

Porthos. Porthos hasn’t said anything yet. He listened to Aramis’ disjointed tale that came unravelled in the street, and then he merely said, “We’ll sort this out,” put an arm around his shoulders and guided him back to the garrison and into the poky little room that occasionally serves as lodgings for new cadets but is currently not occupied. Aramis doubts very much that Porthos has made any sense of what he told him. 

“I never believe in anything I have not seen, and as I never have seen apparitions, I don’t believe in them,” Porthos says. Aramis closes his eyes again and rest his head against the wall, breathing slowly in and out. Porthos doesn’t believe him. Porthos will never believe that. This, too, elicits annoyance and gratefulness in equal measure. Aramis doesn’t want Porthos to believe in shades and spectres. Not Porthos.

“You think I’m mad,” he says softly, opens his eyes and turns his head to face Porthos.

Porthos meets his gaze unflinchingly. “No, I don’t. I don’t think you’re mad.”

“How then,” Aramis swallows, “how do you want to explain this, then? If there isn’t any such thing as ghosts, it must all be in my head.”

Porthos hesitates a moment too long, and it is Athos who speaks. “I think what Porthos is saying is that we’ve all seen things that appeared real, at the time.”

“We did?” D’Artagnan shifts, uncrosses his arms and hooks his thumbs into his belt.

“D’Artagnan,” Athos says again. This time, the warning is unmistakable. 

“Of course. We did,” d’Artagnan says, and Aramis smiles despite himself. “You don’t think it’s real then?” 

Athos glares at him, a murderous sidelong glance that would strike down a lesser man on the spot, but d’Artagnan barely seems to notice. Aramis starts to laugh. 

“I’m sorry.” He presses a hand to his mouth and concentrates on stopping his shoulders from shaking. “I’ll be all right. I’m all right. Continue,” he waves his hand at d’Artagnan, who scowls at him.

“I don’t understand why this is funny.”

“It isn’t,” says Athos and turns to Aramis. “D’Artagnan is right. We need to establish if it’s real.”

“What we need to do is find a way to make it stop,” says Porthos. “Man or devil, body or shadow, illusion or reality, doesn’t matter.”

“And to make it stop, we first need to know if it’s real or not. Aramis,” Athos pushes himself off the wall, sits down on the edge of the bed and leans in to look Aramis in the eye. “Can you tell us anything? Anything he said or did? Did you fight him?”

Aramis frowns, thinking back to the hazy blur that governs his nights, but it is as though attempting to get a grip on a fistful of fog. “I’m not sure,” he admits. “I know I took up my sword, but I don’t know if I ever struck him with it.”

“Next time he appears, you should check if it’s an apparition or if it’s corporeal. Try to get a hold of him.”

“Are you insane?” Porthos glares at Athos. “Do not touch him, Aramis!”

A smile flickers across Athos’ face. “Ah! So you’re not quite the sceptic you pretend to be.”

Porthos huffs indignantly. “I just don’t want it to get worse.”

“Worse than this?” Athos says coolly. 

“I might’ve touched him,” Aramis says. He feels Athos and Porthos tense; d’Artagnan shifts uncomfortably and takes an unconscious step towards the threshold.

“You _might_?” says Athos.

“I’m not sure.” Aramis shrugs and stretches out both arms. “It was the night when my hands had gone numb, I couldn’t feel anything. I’m not sure if I touched him or not.”

“Your hands have gone numb?” D’Artagnan seems determined to take over the part of the Greek chorus. 

Porthos snatches Aramis’ hand and pulls it close. “I thought there was something wrong with the way you held your sword the other day,” he murmurs, rubbing firm, broad circles into Aramis’ hand. “You’re icy cold, no wonder you don’t feel anything.”

“I thought I touched him,” Aramis tells Athos, speaking directly into that clear blue gaze. “It was like touching the carcass of an old carthorse. Like leather stretched over rigid bones.”

“Perhaps he’s not really dead,” d’Artagnan says, glancing at Athos. “Perhaps he survived.”

Aramis snorts. “He died in my arms,” he says through gritted teeth. “I held him as he was dying and felt his life expire. Yes, he’s dead, d’Artagnan.”

“So what you’re saying is that he came back as a wiedergänger?” D’Artagnan says. “Like one of those things that killed Jean-Jacques?”

“Jean-Jacques killed himself,” Athos says.

“But they drove him to it,” says d’Artagnan. “You don’t want to kill yourself, do you?”

“No.” Aramis shakes his head. “Really, no.” He thinks back to when he was sat in his boudoir, his pistol in his hand. It seems days, weeks ago. Beside him, Porthos glares at d’Artagnan; ‘don’t put ideas into his head’, his look says, and Aramis presses Porthos’ hand to calm him, to steady him, to reassure him the way Porthos is calming, steadying, reassuring him. 

“Those things, they don’t exist.” Porthos returns the pressure, and a current of warmth flows from one to the other. But he sounds less sure than before.

“Just because you’ve never seen one, doesn’t mean they’re not real,” Athos says. “You’ve never seen the Holy Ghost, either, and you believe in Him.”

“It’s an article of faith,” Aramis’ voice sounds tired to his own ears. “It’s in the Bible.”

“Perhaps you should speak to a priest,” d’Artagnan says, his voice awash with relief, as though he’d just found the solution to the problem. “They’re supposed to know about such things.”

Athos looks at Aramis sharply. “Have you?”

Aramis nods. His free hand, the one that is not clinging to Porthos’, is wrapped around the Queen’s cross.

“Well?”

“It was… inconclusive.” Aramis sighs. How can he explain his own muddled thoughts, the oppression that descended upon him in glaring sunlight and lifted in the darkness of the confessional, his mounting conviction that none of it was true, the relief of worry, the lightness of soul, the clarity of mind. 

The wave of despair when Marsac returned that night.

“I know something that might work,” d’Artagnan says. “We should talk to Constance.”

“We’re not involving Constance in this,” Aramis says sharply.

“Why the _fuck_ Constance?” Athos stares at d’Artagnan as if he’s lost his mind.

“Because Planchet has left,” is d’Artagnan’s somewhat non-sequitur answer. “You didn’t mind involving her when you hid Marsac in her house,” he says with a nod at Aramis.

“He was alive then,” Aramis says and sighs as d’Artagnan clenches his jaw. “D’Artagnan,” he says gently. “Look at me. Do you really want to do that to Constance?”

D’Artagnan does look at him, and Aramis can see him assess his waxen skin and the dark shadows under his eyes. “Planchet used to tell her all those stories,” d’Artagnan says eventually.

“I bet he did,” Aramis mutters under his breath. He catches Athos’ eye and they exchange a weak grin.

“You know, about those wiedergängers and things. I think he told her a lot about how they are fought. In the east, in the countries where they come from.”

“This is all very well, but they’re not real,” Porthos persists.

“You do think Aramis has gone mad, then?”

“Right.” Athos gets to his feet and puts on his hat. “I don’t know about ghosts and spectres. But I do know someone who knows all about dead bodies.” He looks at each of them in turn. “We all do.”

~*~

Crossing the threshold is like stepping into a bread oven; the air is stagnant, and the sun, even though it has rolled over to the western side of the sky, is still beating down on the bustling street. Aramis feels himself shrink inside his uniform. Inside his skin. Even his shadow shrinks and cowers, as if attempting to hide from the glare.

It is not until they step into a narrow lane where the rays of the sun do not reach that Aramis’ mind clears. His shoulders straighten and so does his shadow. It is a pleasure to watch it stretch and thicken, spread across the dusty ground and dance from the wall of one house to the next. They turn into another lane, and his shadow appears in front of him. It grows bigger and stronger as the sun sinks lower and lower, lengthening even as Aramis watches. His mind goes calm and blank while he walks, as has been its wont lately, and an idea occurs: to make his shadow his sentinel, to send it away into darkness, where it would slink unfelt and invisible; whence it would watch over him.

Dusk is falling as they turn into the alley that holds the morgue. Walking behind Athos, Aramis finds it reassuring to watch his confident stride. As for himself, he his legs appear to have sprouted additional knees. He’s thrown back into boyhood, the summer when he grew seemingly overnight, grew so quickly that he could _feel_ his bones expand; lost control over his limbs and muscles. His legs used to hurt for weeks on end. 

Dusk is falling, and shadows sneak into his path. He feels Porthos’ behind him, his presence as reassuring as Athos’ before him. The shadows slither and twirl and render him dizzy, and he stumbles. Porthos’ hand is there instantly, alighting on his shoulder. “I’m all right,” Aramis says and shakes it off. “Just tired.”

Porthos grumbles something unintelligible, but he lets go. Athos disappears all of a sudden and Aramis’ heart stops, before he realises that Athos has stepped through the door to the morgue. He breathes in and, careful not to break his stride, plunges into darkness in his wake.

The cavernous room smells musty and sweet, a blend of damp stone and human decay. The air in here is viscous, it settles on their leather coats and skin like mist. Water sweats down the stone walls; red-tinged water sloshes in a large basin, drips onto the floor and drains into the gully. As they pile in, Aramis almost knocks over a wooden table, on top of which someone has deposited a sword and a small box. His arm darts forward instinctively and he grabs the sword by the blade to stop it from dropping to the ground. When he pulls back, his fingers are coated in a fine powder. He frowns, but before he can say anything, an eerie whisper reaches his ears.

“He’s still here.” It’s d’Artagnan. His voice, low and hoarse and terrified, sends a shiver down Aramis’ spine. He slings his arquebus over his shoulder, clutching the handle in a deathlike grip. Marsac emerges from the shadow, looms black and tall above him, he’s still here, he’s still here, he’s grinning down at him, and then the spectre dissolves and Aramis realises that it was his own shadow, distorted into a travesty of human shape by the light of the burning candles and appearing more solid than Aramis feels.

“Who’s here?” Porthos asks. Aramis startles. He’s almost forgotten his friends are there with him. Has thought himself alone with Marsac. 

“Jean-Jacques,” d’Artagnan points to a slab in the corner. Aramis takes off his hat as he steps closer and looks down at a face like a dead jackdaw, grey-skinned, with gelatinous eyes. He reaches out and closes the eyelids in a feeble attempt to protect the boy’s modesty. Hans Jacob’s possessions are sitting on the table by the slab; the bundle, as it turns out, held nothing more precious than a change of linen, a woodcut, a carved wooden spoon and two or three books. Aramis picks up one of them, and reads the title: Till Eulenspiegel. He leafs through, admiring the elaborate engravings, and puts it back down. There’s also a small poetry volume, and he pockets it surreptitiously. It’s no use to anyone here, and the boy wouldn’t mind.

He doesn’t touch the broken cross. It didn’t protect the boy, and he won’t have it back. He wonders fleetingly if it was the act of heresy that killed Hans Jacob: if, by handing him, the Protestant, a Catholic cross, Aramis condemned him to suffer in the fires of hell.

Aramis sighs and lifts his eyes. Athos and Porthos are both looking at him. “What?” he forces his face to relax and is glad of the dim light that plays tricks on all their eyes.

“You usually say a few words,” Porthos says.

Aramis blinks. He frowns, grapples for a German prayer, and finds one: “Ewige Ruhe schenke ihm, o Herr. Und das ewige Licht leuchte ihm. Lasse ihn ruhen in Frieden. Amen.” He crosses himself and sees Athos and Porthos do the same.

“Are you really going to cut him open?” d’Artagnan asks. He is staring at the thin figure, transfixed. There is an angry, deep furrow on the right side of the dead boy’s neck, angling upward towards the left ear.

“He’s no use otherwise,” Poupart says, staring down at the body with a hungry expression. “It makes for a good cadaver, there’s not an ounce of fat on his bones. Makes it easier for us to take him apart.”

“But can you not-” d’Artagnan is stopped short by Athos, who looks at him and shakes his head.

“We’ve been through this, d’Artagnan,” he says quite gently. “He died by his own hand. There’s nothing that can be done for him.”

“So he’s going to burn in the fires of hell for all eternity,” d’Artagnan says. “Unless he chooses to come back?” There is an edge to his voice that Aramis doesn’t like at all.

“He won’t come back,” Porthos says firmly.

“How do you know?” d’Artagnan snaps. “Apparently, sometimes they do.”

“Ah, you mean the resurgents of Hungary,” Poupart nods. “Oh yes, you hear tales of them coming back. The war is bringing them closer.”

“Do you think that’s true, then?” Aramis asks before anyone else can say anything. Before they can stop him.

“The dead coming back to life? They say it’s true.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” asks Athos.

“Everyone,” says Poupart. “The soldiers who come back from the battlefields in the east. They saw the dead walking the earth, they say. Skeletons with parchment-like skin and glowing eyes. The alchemists say it’s only a matter of balancing the humours to make a body stand up again. The abbés teach us to expect the resurrection of the body.”

“The Bible tells us,” Aramis says softly, “our Lord brought Lazarus back to life.” He looks up from the grey body and looks Poupart in the eye. “Do you believe it? As a man who is surrounded by the bodies of dead men day in, day out: do you believe it?”

“It’s not scientific,” Poupart says stubbornly. “Once they expire their last breath, all that they do is lie around and decompose.”

“But what about the dead bodies who grow fatter in their graves?” d’Artagnan asks, nervous and belligerent at the same time. “The ones who look healthier when they are dug up than they did before they died?”

“The body bloats with bad humours and with gasses,” says Poupart. “We see it happen here, if we don’t take out the organs quickly. That’s why it’s so important to cut them up in good time.” His gaze shifts back to the slab.

“It’s not because they come out of their graves and feed on the living, then?” Porthos says pointedly. “Good. That’s all we wanted to know.”

“There’s a lot we still have to learn about the body,” Poupart says. “All I want to know is how it works.” He steps closer to the slab and selects a saw from the rack above his head.

Athos stops him with a hand on his arm. “But you have never actually seen any of your bodies come back to life?”

Poupart tears his gaze away from the dead boy and looks at Athos. “No. Never. The ones we have here would’ve had a hard time standing up, stuffed with straw and salted as they are.”

“Now, there’s an idea,” mutters Porthos.

Aramis looks at Porthos, then at Athos, and shrugs. “Thank you, Monsieur,” he says with a nod at Poupart. “I think you’ve told us everything that you could.” He turns back to leave and walks into the wooden table again; seizes the sword again to stop it from dropping to the ground. “Perhaps you should consider putting this somewhere else,” he says. “It’s very much in the way.”

“It’s an experiment,” Poupart says. He walks over and takes the sword out of Aramis’ hand. “Put it back down, careful. Don’t wipe the powder off the blade.”

“What is it?” Aramis asks. “I got some on my hand earlier. It’s not poison, is it?”

“No, not poison.” Poupart lifts the wooden box and holds it out to Aramis. “Careful, don’t spill it. It’s powder of sympathy.”

“Isn’t that just unguentum armarium?” asks Athos. “Weapon salve?”

“No, it’s not just weapon salve. This was revealed to me by an Arab, who claims that it’s much better than our Christian preparation.”

“Surely that’s a heretic thing to claim,” says Athos with a quirk of his lip.

“And you think it really works?” Aramis raises his eyebrows and holds the wooden box into the light. He lifts off the lid carefully. “May I?” Poupart nods, and Aramis sniffs. “It’s quite pungent.”

“Roman vitriol,” Poupart says. “I beat it very small in a mortar, added Solanum nigrum, shifted it through a fine sieve as the sun entered Leo, and I’ve kept it in the heat of the sun and dry by night. Now that it’s ready, I am testing its properties.”

“How?” Aramis asks. “Are you trying to bring any of them back to life after all?” He jerks his head to indicate the slabs.

“That’s not how the powder of sympathy works. It doesn’t have the power to bring back the dead, as well you know, Monsieur. We use it to heal wounds.”

“You do?” Porthos says. “I’ve never seen you use it, Aramis.”

Aramis shakes his head, twisting his mouth into an almost-smile. 

“You don’t believe in it, Monsieur,” says Poupart. “And yet it has been shown to work. As soldiers, you might want to avail yourselves of weapon salve. You will need it one day.”

“Then we shall come to you and ask for your help,” says Aramis and puts his hat on with a flourish. He hands the wooden box back to Poupart. “Thank you for your help.”

They climb up the stairs and spill back into the street, and each one of them takes a deep breath to cleanse his lungs from the murky air of Poupart’s vaulted cavern. Athos speaks first.

“Well, that was-”

“Inconclusive,” Aramis supplies. He sighs and looks up into the sky. “I don’t think there’s any help to be found, anywhere.”

Porthos walks over to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. “At least we know now that Marsac isn’t real,” he says. “If even Poupart, who is surrounded by the dead every day of his life, has never seen any of them get up and walk off, that can only mean that it’s impossible. If the dead were able to walk, then surely Poupart would be the man to walk away from, and quick.” He grins, and Aramis grins back.

“What kind of experiments did he mean?” d’Artagnan asks in a whisper. He’s clearly unsettled, has been ever since the news of Hans Jacob’s death has pushed him off-balance, and he’s struggling to regain his equilibrium. 

“Nothing to worry about,” Athos says. “Weapon salve is quite commonly used to heal wounds. You must have heard about it, even in Gascony.”

D’Artagnan shrugs. “We always used a balsam that my mother had been given by a Bohemian. It had the miraculous property of curing all wounds that do not reach the heart.”

“Well, not everyone is so fortunate to have such a balsam. Or such a mother,” Athos says. “Weapon salve is applied not to the wound, but to the weapon that caused it. Remember what Planchet was saying about the force of sympathy? The salve adheres to the sword, and the force of sympathy draws out from the wound those virtues of iron which the sword left there and which impede its healing. That, at least, is the theory.”

“You don’t believe it, then?” D’Artagnan looks from Athos, to Porthos, to Aramis. “Even though it has been shown to work?”

Porthos is shaking his head, Athos lifts a corner of his mouth in his not-quite smile, and Aramis shrugs. “It could also have something to do with the fact,” he says, “that whoever applies the salve also tells the patient to keep the wound clean and to bathe it every day in salt water, so that it may receive the correct influence, as they call it. I suspect that flushes out the bad humours more efficiently than the force of sympathy.”

Porthos laughs. “That’s right. There’s a rational explanation for everything.” He pats d’Artagnan on the back. “And we’ll make sure to find it.” He catches Aramis’ eye. “We’ll find it,” he reiterates.

“I know,” Aramis says quietly and lifts his eyes to the red-tinged sky.

~*~

He insisted he’d be all right. Porthos was reluctant to let him go home on his own, and for a moment Aramis was tempted to give in, to curl up under Porthos’ protective wings like a hurt animal in its burrow. But no. He wasn’t an animal, and he would not hide, not now, not when they knew of his pathetic struggle with nocturnal fears and spectres. “I am going home, Porthos,” he said finally. “Whatever it is, I have to face it.”

“That’s a very good idea,” Athos said. “No, Porthos, leave him. If we want to find a solution, we need to know what we’re dealing with. Find out as much about it as you can. Fight him, if you have to. Just bring back _something_ that we can work with.”

“What if he hurts him?” Porthos growled, his eyes on Aramis.

“I don’t think he will,” Aramis said. “He hasn’t so far. I don’t think that’s what he wants.”

“You don’t know that,” Porthos began to look and sound as if he would gladly hurt Aramis himself if that served to keep Aramis from running headlong into danger. “You don’t know what happens when he shows up.”

“I thought he didn’t exist,” Athos said.

“Oh, he exists,” Porthos said. “Even if it’s only in his head.”

Aramis stood. “Right. I’m off.” He walked off without a backward glance, aware of the looks that followed him. Aware of the fact that, if he turned to look at them, he’d run back and crawl into Porthos’ arms and beg, _beg_ Athos to tell him in his most authoritative voice that all would be well.

Shadows crept from every corner he passed on his way home. They unfurled and swelled in his path and loomed in his wake, and each of them was a dark abyss into which he might fall if he were not careful, if his step ever faltered, if he ever stumbled. The stygian sky hung low above his head, and the gibbous moon has shrunk into a sharp-edged crescent. 

He is sitting in his boudoir now, waiting. Waiting for the footsteps to ring out in the dark hallway. Waiting for the familiar silhouette to emerge from the shadow, in the same way that shapes emerge from clouds. His pistol is lying within a hand’s reach on the table and his sword leans against the chair. He won’t go to bed, he wants to stay alert, to face the apparition on his terms for once; to assess it.

The candle flickers in the breeze that pours in from the window. Aramis turns his head, half in fear, half in hope. He doesn’t want to see Marsac again, he’s been praying daily for him to vanish for good. And yet, in the here and now, he hopes for Marsac to appear, because the wait, the wait, the wait is driving him insane, insane, insane. He flips a coin with one hand, watches it turn and swirl in the air in a flash of silver, a short burst of light, the flash pan igniting the priming. The arquebus fires and the loud crack startles him awake, and he realises he’s dozed off. The coin has fallen to the floor and rolled under the table.

Aramis stands; walks around the table, peers into the shadows. Sits down again. “Are you there yet?” he asks into the sucking void. “Come on, Marsac. I’m waiting. Don’t desert me.”

He folds his arms on the table and leans his forehead into their cradle. “Don’t desert me again,” he whispers.

And there it is: the whisper of air that he’s been waiting for, the creak of floorboards. A heaviness that descends over his shoulders, as if someone had pulled a thick blanket over him. It has been a mistake, he realises in hindsight, to leave the candle burning. When he turns his head to the side and blinks his eyes open, he can see the handle of his pistol, and, almost touching it, a hand. It rests upon the table, just within his line of vision, and shadows dip into the hollows between the fingers, between the bones, the gnarled, gnawed-on bones, the bones of a wiedergänger that devours the living by devouring its own flesh. He thinks of Athos’ words, fight him if you have to, and he’d love to, but it feels so good to succumb to weariness, to surrender himself to an nameless power. He’s been waiting, he realises, for five years; he’s been waiting for Marsac to come back for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fairly sure autopsies would have been illegal in that period, but the show implies that they take place, so I just went with it.
> 
> The fact that dead bodies would sometimes bloat and look "healthier" than they did in life is considered one of the origins of the upiór/upir/upyr legend.


	6. Pax Aeterna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW for this chapter: some gore, i.e. a decomposing body (well, it is a zombie story); one animal death.**

A cloud shifts in Aramis’ mind and a sudden clarity descends upon him. Everything falls into place: the reason why Marsac is here, why he came to him, for him. Why he, Aramis, must follow. His heart is as light as it was when he stepped out of the confessional, all those days, weeks ago. Marsac came for him there, too, came into the church to fetch Aramis and carry him off with him. Marsac didn’t want to leave him behind, Aramis knows that now, he was dragged away by a higher power. He came back, he’s here now, the sharp click-clack of his heels hitting the floorboards is drawing closer and closer, and the world is getting brighter and brighter. He feels it, then, the touch on his back, a hand clasping his shoulder, the pressure of strong fingers, firm and reassuring, and a voice, familiar and gentle. 

Aramis wakes. “Porthos,” he mutters into the linen of his sleeve. His head is resting on his crossed arms, and Porthos’ hand is resting on his shoulder; he recognises its familiar grip.

“Why are you sleeping here?” Porthos pulls a chair closer with his free hand, Aramis hears it scrape across the floor, and sits down without letting go of Aramis’ shoulder.

“I fell asleep,” Aramis says, lifting his head and wincing. “Stupid of me.”

“Yeah,” Porthos says and squeezes his shoulder. “You all right?”

“Yes.” Aramis straightens his back, rolls his neck and shoulders and shakes off Porthos’ hand. “I think I actually slept through,” he says. His neck hurts and his hands are numb, but he feels more refreshed than he has in days. 

“Marsac didn’t come, I take it?” Athos is leaning against the doorframe and watching Aramis from beneath the brim of his hat. 

Aramis frowns and runs his hand through his hair. “I need a haircut,” he mutters, sliding his hand down his temple and cheek. “And a shave.” 

“Aramis?” Athos hasn’t moved, nor does his steady gaze waver.

“I don’t know,” Aramis says. He begins to suspect that he is being treated like an aged relative who has become quite childish in his dotage. He feels quite foolish and then suddenly furious, and stands abruptly. “Everything’s fine,” he says, with an edge that he can’t quite control. “I’m sorry about yesterday, I haven’t been sleeping lately and got those ideas into my head.”

“Indeed,” Athos says.

Aramis’ patience snaps. “You know how it is,” he hurls into Athos’ face. “Don’t tell me you don’t.” Behind him, Porthos shuffles in his chair, but he doesn’t say anything. Aramis grits his teeth so hard that he can hear them grind against each other.

Something melts in Athos’ icy blue gaze. He unfolds his arms, takes off his hat and steps fully into the room. He crosses over to Aramis and stands, for the second time in the space of a few days, he stands face to face with him. Aramis braces himself. His hand darts instinctively to the pommel of his sword, but it’s not there, he’s only in his linens, not buckled and belted yet. 

“Come on, let’s have breakfast,” Athos says. “Then we’ll talk.”

~*~

“So this is your bright idea?” Aramis still can’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it when Athos suggested it, quite matter-of-factly, couldn’t believe Porthos’ wide grin, couldn’t believe d’Artagnan’s torrent of excited words. “Surely, you must be joking.”

“Do I look like I was joking?”

Aramis is rubbing the feather on his hat between fingers and thumb. “It’s hard to tell with you,” he says, and turns to the man who is keeping himself apart from them, a man clad in the black robe of a Jesuit. “And you, Father. You have sanctioned this?”

“Reports such as this must be investigated. It is our holy duty,” the Jesuit’s voice is every note as unctuous as Aramis would have expected. 

“What reports?” Aramis is getting angry again. It is a relief to feel such fury seethe within his chest, after all those days, weeks, of blank haze. “What _reports_?”

“Reports that the man had committed a grave sin. That he was buried before he could receive the Last Sacrament.”

“Really.” Aramis looks at Athos, at Porthos and skims d’Artagnan. “Seriously?” He can’t believe this. He was prepared to believe Marsac coming back from the dead, but he refuses to believe that his friends came up with such a ludicrous fable – he can hardly call it a plan – to relieve him from that nightmare. “Of course he was buried before he could receive the Last Sacrament. It was rather sudden, if you recall.”

“He had time to repent and to confess,” says the Jesuit. “His sins were older. He could have confessed them.”

“He was a soldier,” Aramis says, wearily. They all carry sins in their hearts that have never been repented.

“A _deserter_ ,” says Porthos.

“A heretic,” says the Jesuit. “Who consorted with the devil.”

“Was he? Did he?” Aramis scratches his temple with the nail of his thumb, glaring at Athos, hoping that his gaze conveys his murderous intent. He felt awake this morning, truly awake; clear-headed and alert. Now, he senses the fog of yesterday pool back into his mind in heavy coils. He shakes his head to clear it. “How do you know that?”

“He consorted with heretics, in the east.” The Jesuit, Aramis decides, is a man devoid of any spark of imagination or resourcefulness. Aramis is convinced that Athos sought him out precisely because of that: a staunch, steadfast fool, one who will plod his way through an inquisition without glancing left or right. Where on earth did Athos find him so quickly?

“When he took part in the Polish campaign, in Livonia,” Porthos supplies helpfully, as the Jesuit begins to drone a prayer. Aramis nudges Porthos and looks pointedly at his hat. Porthos takes it off. “Where did Athos find him?” He whispers. He never doubts that it was Athos’ doing. 

“I think he often drinks, alone.”

“I know,” Aramis hisses.

“No, not Athos. Him.” Porthos indicates the Jesuit with a jerk of his head. “Athos must’ve seen him around.”

“Lord help us,” Aramis mutters. He falls silent and lowers his head, immersing himself in the familiar melody of the prayer. He doesn’t pay attention to the words, lets them wash over him in warm waves. He narrows his eyes against the sun and lets go; releases his thoughts from the tight control of his conscious mind and lets them roam free. He feels them stretch and unfold, tentative wisps at first, then firmer and bolder. They wander, as his gaze drifts from one wooden cross to the next, one, two, three four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Twenty-one.

Twenty-one.

There should be twenty-two.

There should be twenty-two.

The twenty-second grave is empty. It is waiting. It is waiting for him, a gaping maw that is sucking at him, stretched wide like the jaw of the leviathan. Like the whale that swallowed Jonah. Like Jonah, he is a cursed man.

Aramis gulps in a mouthful of air and re-emerges from the swirling surge in his head. Porthos shuffles a half-step closer until their shoulders brush, and he catches Athos’ eye across the grave. D’Artagnan is standing quite still, his hands clasped before his stomach, and stares fixedly at the mound of earth. Aramis is flooded by a sudden wave of sympathy for the boy. Sometimes, they forget how young d’Artagnan is, a farm boy who has been in Paris a mere six months. They should have taken better care of him, he thinks, they should not have dragged him into this. He should not have dragged him into this, like Jonah he has brought misfortune over his comrades, and they are going down with him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says to d’Artagnan. The boy’s head snaps up and he stares at Aramis with wounded eyes. Aramis realises that the Jesuit has ceased talking and crosses himself. Only then does he become aware that something is amiss. He’s standing almost atop of the grave, has moved forward without knowing how. He has obviously disrupted the prayer, too. The Jesuit’s mouth hangs open, as if he’d been interrupted mid-word, but he appears to be too bewildered to react. Trust Athos to find the only Jesuit in Paris, perhaps in the whole of France, Aramis thinks with a flash of humour, with the mental capacities of a carp. 

“Good idea,” Porthos says. “That’s enough of that, let’s get down to business.” He rubs his hands gleefully, as if he was looking forward to the gruesome task, looks back over his shoulder and whistles. “Come on!”

A man in sombre clothes shuffles closer. He is carrying a spade. 

“I haven’t finished,” the Jesuit says in what he obviously hopes is the voice of authority.

“I think you’ll find you have,” Athos has stepped over soundlessly, like a large tomcat. 

The Jesuit’s shoulders sag. He makes the sign of the cross above the grave, steps back, lets the sexton step forward. The spade pierces the earth and the reflection of the sun catches on the metal surface and stabs Aramis in the eye. He blinks and takes a step back, bumping into Porthos.

“It’s fine,” Porthos says. “You’ve seen worse.”

It’s not that, Aramis wants to say. He has seen worse, the sight of a dead man does not unnerve him. 

Except it does. He can’t imagine anything worse than this.

They wait. The soil moves, one spade full, then another, then another, the mound melts, and a pile of earth grows to the left of the grave. The sexton works with the unconcerned ease of a man who doesn’t give any thought to what he might find at the end of his journey. Who is prepared to go on and on, like the golem in the stories told by the Hebrews, until he is stopped by his master’s command. Even if he were to dig until his spade pierces through the vault of Hell.

Glimpses of grey appear amidst the brown of the soil as the sexton lays bare the shroud. Aramis finds he can’t watch. His hand is clenched around the brim of his hat, so hard that it feels as if he was digging holes into the soft felt. He cups his mouth with his other hand, like a man suffering a bilious attack, and hauls in one harsh breath after the other into his lungs. In the serpent-green grass, a shadow moves; it crouches deep above the ground, and then it stretches and rolls away, and Aramis lifts his eyes to the sky and realises that it was a cloud that flew past the sun.

The grave is now more grey than brown. The earth removed, the shroud exposed, and the sexton halts, stills and waits. Like the golem in the stories told by the Hebrews, he waits for his master’s command.

“Well?” Porthos says. “Let’s see what’s in there.”

“Do you need to do anything else, Father?” Aramis asks and swallows. “Before we uncover him?” The Jesuit shakes his head.

“Very well,” Athos says. “In that case, let us proceed.” With a gesture at the sexton, who pulls out a dagger and cuts through the (torn, bitten, gnawed) fabric with a sound like slicing through hide. A collective sigh rises around the grave.

“He’s in there,” d’Artagnan says.

“Of course he’s in there,” Porthos says. “What did you expect?”

The shroud falls open, and from between its folds peers the face that has haunted Aramis’ nights. One eyelid open, the eye long gone, and the side of the face a gaping, jagged-edge hole where flesh and skin used to be.

“He’s been chewed on,” d’Artagnan says. He’s pointing to the hands, the gnarled, gnawed-on hands, that lie folded across the chest. D’Artagnan’s lips form the word ‘wiedergänger’, but he does not speak it, as if afraid that the sound of its name would waken the creature that crawls out to devour the living.

“Rats,” Porthos says. “And worms. He’s been buried for days, of course he’s been chewed on.” He points to the eye socket teeming with maggots. A beetle whose shell glitters bluish in the sun scurries into the mouth, past sponge-like lips and parted teeth.

“How on earth,” Aramis says slowly, fighting against the dizziness that sends the world spinning around him, “how on earth do you want to prove he was a heretic. That he consorted with the devil, now that he’s dead? Do you not usually interrogate them to get to the truth? Father?”

“That won’t be necessary in this case,” the Jesuit says in a flat voice. “I will undertake the relevant steps without interrogating the accused.”

“Shame,” Porthos says. “I’d have liked to see that.” Athos shoots him a filthy look, and d’Artagnan exhales shakily. Aramis looks up, looks at the clouds speeding across the cerulean sky, and wonders when, exactly, he has been swept up by the vortex of insanity. 

The Jesuit is fumbling for a manuscript. He unfolds it with fingers that shake slightly, and Aramis reads the title: _Les strigues de Russie_ , by Pierre des Noyers.

Aramis catches Athos’ eye across the grave. ‘Really?’ he mouthes. Athos shrugs and turns his attention to the Jesuit, who is frowning in concentration. His lips move faintly as he reads, and Aramis begins to feel sorry for him. How did that man become a Jesuit? How did he manage to stay _alive_ for so long? He might be suited to a career as a country curate, but becoming one of the soldiers of God? The Society of Jesus didn’t usually look kindly on men whose brains were not larger than those of a songbird.

“Are you sure that M. des Noyers knows the right cure for,” Aramis gestures vaguely, “this?”

“M. des Noyers has lived at the Polish court for many years. He has been compiling accounts on how the people in the east fight walking corpses,” says the Jesuit.

“Good. Good. I’m glad to hear that.” Aramis taps his hat against his thigh and walks a few steps, walks towards the row of crosses, touches one with his fingertips and then another, mutters names under his breath, Lesseps, Gondrin, Montbéliard. He remembers each name, has spoken them many times, like a prayer; felt them slip through this mind like rosary beads through his fingers. Polignac. Valentinois. Marsac. Always, always Marsac. 

“Planchet told us about how they are fought,” d’Artagnan says. He looks pale and gaunt, and, for a moment, Aramis fears that a wiedergänger or an upior, or whatever those damned apparitions are called, has got to him, too. That the boy is haunted by the spectre of Hans Jacob or – Aramis’ heart clenches – of his father. They quite forgot him, the unknown Alexandre d’Artagnan, the man whose death was the reason why their paths crossed.

“D’Artagnan, are you all right?” he asks quietly and touches the boy’s arm.

D’Artagnan gives him a watery smile. “I should be asking you this,” he says.

Aramis squeezes his arm and says, “Porthos is right, you know. This is all in my head. Marsac is dead, and the dead don’t come back.”

“Why are we doing this, then?”

Aramis shrugs. Why are they doing this? Athos and Porthos are doing this, because they can’t not do it. If Marsac were alive, they would gladly run him through with their swords on Aramis’ behalf. But Marsac is dead, their swords inefficient, and he can only imagine how that makes them feel. He can picture them before his inner eye, pictures them as they were last night, after he left, sees them hunched over the table in the garrison courtyard, sharing a bottle of wine and then another one, hears them talk in whispers, argue in low voices, mindful that no-one should hear, that no-one should know his shameful secret. He knows, because this is what they do, and he loves them for it.

And he hates that he has driven them to this, to the disgrace of pretending they believe in ghost tales for his sake, to keep him company in the world of fears and fancies.

Aloud he says: “You know Athos and Porthos. If they decide on something, nothing will put them off. I think,” he leans in closer and speaks so that only d’Artagnan can hear him, “I think Athos might be doing it to mock the Jesuit. They probably made a bet who can push him further.” 

“There are several ways of stopping a,” the Jesuit pauses, squints at the page and forces his tongue around the unfamiliar syllables, “an upior. Some advise to pierce the head with a wooden stake.”

“No,” Aramis says. “We’re not doing that.” Marsac is his brother and his friend. He’d rather have Marsac come back, night after night, for the rest of his life than drive a wooden stake through his head.

“Or an iron nail,” the Jesuit continues.

Aramis sighs. “It’s not the instrument I object to, but the technique,” he says and sees Porthos grin broadly and Athos smirk. Trust them to turn this nightmare into a sport. 

“Or cut his head off.”

“That’s the method Planchet told us about,” says d’Artagnan. “He witnessed it himself. A man who died from a blow to the head suddenly came back to life, hours later. He was already laid out and the women were preparing him for burial. He stirred, they ran out, shouting for help. At first nobody wanted to go into the house, but then some men picked up scythes and axes and stormed in. He was sitting up in the coffin. And so they cut his head off.”

“Did it work?” asks Athos, in a voice dry as old parchment. D’Artagnan stares at him for a moment or two.

“Oh. Yes.”

“Good.”

“We’re not cutting Marsac’s head off,” Aramis says wearily. He’s getting fed up with this. They are not the ones who will be visited by a vengeful spirit in the dark. And he’d rather Marsac carried his head on his shoulders than under his arm.

Porthos opens his mouth to speak, catches Aramis’ eye and changes his mind.

“What else?” Athos prompts.

“Put a piece of metal into his mouth,” says the Jesuit.

Athos and Porthos both look at him, and Aramis nods. “Yes. All right.” He looks around. “Did anyone bring a piece of metal?”

“Well, we’ve got our weapons,” says d’Artagnan.

“Have you lost your mind? We’re not giving him any weapons!” says Porthos.

“Many say that turning the dead over, so that he’s forced to chew on soil for all eternity, will work.”

“I think this is something we can all live with,” says Porthos.

“Really?” Aramis says. He is getting lightheaded again. “An abomination from beyond the grave, and it can be fooled by being made to sleep on its belly? Turn him over, then, Porthos.”

“You turn him over.” They glare at each other. Aramis is truly angry now, and he hates it. He hates falling out with Porthos over this, _this_. Over Marsac. Not again. Not _again_. It was bad enough when he was alive, but now that he’s dead, he must not stand between them. Aramis can see him quite clearly, waking slowly, stretching like a cat within the folds of his shroud, sucking in the fetid air of his grave, grinning like a cat and, like a cat, the blackened remainders of his lips pulled back, his teeth bared in a snarl, sucking in the scent of his prey through his mouth. 

“Gentlemen.” Athos steps over quietly and looks from one to the other. “You’re forgetting.” He points to the sexton, who has remained as still as an unwound automaton, leaning on his spade and watching them as a man might watch shadow puppetry. Athos’ gesture sets him in motion. He tugs at the shroud with practised ease, but the cheap fabric tears, and it falls apart under his touch. It’s obscene, even though Marsac is fully clothed. Leaving him bereft of his shroud is leaving him bare, exposed to the eyes of the living in an indecent display. 

The sexton tugs at the cloth again, grunting with effort, and Porthos crouches down to help, then d’Artagnan does the same. With joined forces, they manage to roll the body on its side. Its eyeless face turns towards Aramis, maggots trickle from the holes of his nose and in his cheeks, the split in his lip has become a huge tear, and a shred of flesh dangles from his mouth. This is the worst stage, Aramis knows, when it’s not so far gone as to be unrecognisable, but too far gone to be human. 

Aramis sinks down to his knees by the grave and touches Marsac’s chest; looks him in the face. “I’m sorry, old friend,” he whispers. It is as if the palm of his hand were pressed up against the carcass of an old carthorse, against leather stretched over rigid bones. 

“There’s fresh grass.” D’Artagnan sits back on his haunches and wipes his forehead with his forearm. “Here. On the heels of his boots. Fresh grass.” He picks it off. It’s a clump of earth with blades of grass sticking from it. 

“It must’ve fallen in when we were turning him over,” says Porthos. He reaches out a hand as if to take the grass off d’Artagnan, but pulls back before he can touch it. “There’s grass everywhere.”

“It’s fresh,” d’Artagnan repeats. “And it stuck to his heel, as if he stepped into it.”

They freeze, all of them but the sexton, who continues tugging at Marsac’s clothing in a futile attempt to turn the body over single-handedly. All he achieves is make the body shake like a man in the grip of fever. “Stop it,” Aramis says, trying and failing to unclench his teeth. He feels the carcass shake under his palm, and remembers, with a clarity that turns his blood to ice water, remembers Marsac shaking in his arms that night, in the snow, the night when he died for the first time. A crow caws and he jumps, looking around wildly. It’s in his head, he’s not in Savoy, he’s in Paris, the crows have not followed him here. It hops towards him, black against the green grass, and Aramis stands, pulls out his pistol and, without taking time to aim, pulls the trigger. The bird drops to the ground with a wailing shriek, one wing stuck out awkwardly, and Aramis strides over, picks it up and tears its head off its neck.

“Let’s get it over with,” he says. He breathes in, relaxes his face and turns round. The sexton, Porthos and d’Artagnan are kneeling by the grave. Athos stands above them, his hat in his hand, and the Jesuit stands apart, his face green, the manuscript shaking in his hands.

“Aramis is right. No point dragging this out,” Athos says, and the men by the grave set in motion. Aramis looks at Athos, and Athos looks back at him, and they wait until the commotion in the grave is over, until Porthos and d’Artagnan and the sexton clamber to their feet again, shake the earth off the knees of their breeches, straighten, still, and then Athos pulls out his pistol and shoots Marsac through the heart.

Aramis closes his eyes, waits for the echo to subside. Opens his eyes again. “Why?” This is Athos, Athos has a point, Athos always has a point. He needs to hear it, even if he had to tear the words out of Athos’ mouth by force. “Why, Athos?”

“We’ll put sympathetic powder on the wound,” Athos says. “If the force of sympathy can draw out the bad virtues that the blade left in the wound, it will work the other way round as well. The bad virtues of the pistol ball will be drawn into the wound and make sure he stays dead.”

“You have thought this through, have you?”

Athos return his gaze calmly. “Yes.”

Aramis looks from Athos to the Jesuit, who has turned his back at them and is doubled over, a hand pressed to his mouth. He walks to the man, picks up the manuscript, smoothes it, and hands it back to him; the Jesuit takes it mechanically. Aramis walks to stand by Athos. “Get the powder out, then.”

~*~

He insisted he’d be all right. Porthos was reluctant to let him go home on his own, and for a moment Aramis was tempted to give in, to curl up under Porthos’ protective wings like a hurt animal in its burrow.

But no. Marsac was gone, gone, gone, and he would not spend his nights hiding from the spectre of a dead man. “I am going home, Porthos,” he said, just like he had done the night before. “Whatever happens, I have to face it on my terms.”

“Let him go, Pothos,” Athos said. “You heard the Jesuit. Marsac is gone, and he won’t come back.”

And Aramis left.

He is sitting in his boudoir now, waiting. Waiting to hear footsteps that will not come, will never again come, and he is holding his pistol in his hand. He shoves a cleaning patch down the barrel with a ramrod, pushes it all the way in to clean out barrel fouling. He runs a cloth over the hammer, the flint, the frizzen, and the pan, scrubbing off every last grain of soot. He rubs the pan vigorously with the pan brush, until it is perfectly clean and dry. He wipes the barrel with an oiled cloth, and he listens, listens, listens, to the creak of the floorboards, to the tell-tale click-clack of heeled boots, to the screech of the door hinges.

There it is, at last. The distant scrape of the front door as it is pushed open. Aramis sighs, pricks the touch-hole, puts a few grains of priming powder into the pan, closes the frizzen. 

…footsteps in the hall, erratic, like the heartbeat of a dying man…

Cocks the hammer. Bends his head. Waits.

The door creaks open, and Aramis flexes his arm. Lifts his head. 

Porthos fills the doorframe. His hand rests on the back of Athos’ neck in what is meant to be a tender, supportive gesture. What it looks like is a mother cat dragging a wayward kitten by the scruff of its neck.

“Just because you two insist on being utter fools,” Porthos says, “I don’t have to.”

~*~

“He didn’t tell me what he was planning, with the sympathetic powder.” Porthos says. “He took a leaf out of your book.”

He and Aramis are seated at the table in the boudoir, whilst Athos is next door, going through the cupboard in the eating room in search of wine goblets.

“I see.”

“He won’t come back. Athos’ plans never fail.”

Aramis looks up at him and smiles. “I know.”

Porthos smiles back, honestly and happily; a smile that makes his eyes crinkle and his cheeks dimple. He opens the mouth as if to say something, but Athos chooses that precise moment to throw open the door and stride back into the room. “Your landlady should be whipped,” he declares dramatically. “I found only two goblets and there was a dead spider in one of them. You two will have to share.”

He shrugs off his jacket, pulls off his boots, drops into a chair and pours himself wine in one fluid motion. “We are staying here tonight, I understand,” he says in answer to Aramis’ raised eyebrows. “I might as well get comfortable now.”

“So we won’t have to help you out of your clothes later,” says Porthos, grinning.

“Precisely.” Athos raises his glass and holds it into the light. The flame of the candle conjures ruby highlights in the liquid. “To what are we drinking? Aramis?”

Aramis stops with the flagon hovering above his and Porthos’ goblet. He smiles, fills and raises it. “To fallen friends,” he says softly.

To everyone’s surprise, it is Porthos who falls asleep first. He is slumped over the table, his head rests heavily on his bent arm, the other arm dangles loosely. Aramis is too jittery still, the wine courses through his blood like the elixir of life. Athos will drink, steadily, until every last drop is gone. 

Aramis reaches across and picks up the flagon. He fills his goblet – his own now that he no longer has to share it with Porthos – and holds the wine out to Athos. “How much did you pay him?” he asks casually. He lifts his eyes and meets Athos’ gaze. “The, ah, ‘Jesuit’?”

Athos smiles. “I knew he wouldn’t fool you for long, but it was worth a try.”

Aramis snorts. “He was hopeless. You can’t simply put a black frock on a man and expect everyone to fall for the charade. Some people,” he leans in and smiles warmly, “some people look past appearances.”

“The appearances weren’t supposed to fool you,” Athos says. “I wouldn’t have obtained permission to open the grave on such short notice without the weight of the Society of Jesus behind my request. Some people don’t look past the black frock.”

“Clever.”

“Thank you.” Athos stands, steadies himself against the rest of Aramis’ chair, and nods at Porthos. “We should get him to bed.” 

Aramis mmhs his assent. 

Athos leans in and kisses Aramis on the forehead. He smells of wine and leather, and the unexpected, tender gesture almost makes Aramis weep. “Come on.”

Porthos is half-drunk, half-asleep as they drag him down the hall. He’s aware, even in his state of insensibility, that it’s perfectly safe for him not to wake, and does nothing to help them. Aramis is certain that Athos bumps him into a corner on purpose at least once, and he suppresses the laughter that bubbles up in his chest.

They drop him on the bed. It is too narrow for the three of them, and Aramis drags out a bedroll and a couple of blankets and spreads them on the floor. Athos opens the door to the garden and lets in the patter of rain and the sweet smell of summer air. He sinks down beside Aramis, who has curled up by the bed, and pulls a blanket over himself. Porthos’ arm is dangling off the edge of the bed, and Aramis rolls into the touch of his hand.

Athos wine-soaked breath swipes across his face. “I am sorry,” Athos says, so quietly that it might have only been a wisp of air.

Aramis frowns and then, remembering that Athos can’t see him: “Why?”

“For forsaking you. No, Aramis.” He forestalls any objections with two fingers pressed to Aramis’ mouth. “Let me do this. For once let me apologise. I’ll be sobered up by tomorrow, I might never tell you.” He falls silent and Aramis listens, patiently, to the sound of his breathing. “We left you alone for petty, stupid reasons. Left you to deal with that, alone,” Athos says. “Aramis. I never told you this, but.” He breathes in, deeply. “I know what it’s like to kill someone you love.”

Aramis grasps his hand and presses it, wordlessly. Athos falls silent again, his fingers resting loosely against Aramis’ palm as he relaxes bit by bit.

“Thank you,” Aramis whispers eventually.

The warm pressure that is Porthos’ hand on his shoulder shifts, as Porthos moves his hand, sliding it along Aramis’ collarbone until it rest against his chest, against his heart. “You’re welcome,” Porthos murmurs drowsily. “Now shut up, you two, and let me sleep.”

Athos’ fingers twitch in his and Aramis knows he’s smiling. He nestles deeper into the blankets, into the warmth of the two men who guard him on both sides, and he listens. A faint echo still lingers in his head, like a voice once-beloved yet long-forgotten, but it’s fading even as sleep begins to claim him, body and soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The exhumation procedure is completely made up. I’ve absolutely no idea what an exhumation would’ve looked like. In _Friends and Enemies_ , they simply dig up that guy whom d’Artagnan shot. I imagined it’d be a bit more complicated than that – hence the addition of the Jesuit, to pretend that this is some sort of sanctioned ceremony. 
> 
> 2\. Pierre des Noyers did exist, albeit a few decades too late for the purpose of this story. He was secretary to the Polish Queen Ludwika Maria Gonzaga de Nevers. She was French by birth and, as Queen of Poland, she corresponded with scientists all across Europe. Pierre des Noyers as her secretary was in charge of that correspondence, as well as of procuring the latest books and keeping her updated on scientific discoveries and political developments. Also, he was a spy of Richelieu’s successor, Cardinal Mazarin.
> 
> 3\. Pierre des Noyers’ _Les strigues de Russie_ was published in 1693. But hey, it’s only a few decades off. That’s nothing compared with the show killing off bloody _Richelieu_ a good decade too early.
> 
> 4\. Also: cleaning a pistol? Is filthy. Showing a ramrod into the barrel. Pricking the touch-hole, FFS. ~~No wonder Aramis enjoys it so much.~~

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote an extended scene for the final chapter here: [In Corpore Sano](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2301218)
> 
> **Now with added commentary/notes[here on Tumblr](http://donnaimmaculata.tumblr.com/post/94435267506/ars-moriendi-commentary-and-notes).**
> 
>  
> 
> I've got a buttload of notes, because I did actual proper research for this. I will probably post some in the end, when the whole story is up. A general note for the entire fic: the events, ideas and theories mentioned here are quite genuine. I might have tweaked minor details here and there, but on the whole it's TRUFAX.
> 
> I drew a lot of inspiration from Umberto Eco’s "The Island of the Day Before", because I can rely on his novels to be flawlessly researched (and therefore don’t have to do any research myself), and from Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen’s "Simplicius Simplicissimus", a semi-autobiographical (the supernatural elements are probably not 100% accurate) novel based on the author’s experiences in the Thirty Years’ War. As always, I fill in gaps with details from the bookverse.


End file.
